Harry Milvaine: or, The Wanderings of a Wayward Boy

He knew enough of the climate, however, not to venture for a week or two longer, for a man needs all the nerve and strength that the human frame can possess to battle against the odds presented to him on such a journey as that which he was now making.

The day wore away, the sun set in a cloudscape of indescribable glory, the short twilight succeeded, then the stars peeped out through the blue rifts in the sky.

After a supper of fruit and roasted yams, Harry lay down on his couch of grass and fell into a dreamless sleep.

When he awoke, the stars were still shining and the sky was far more clear. A brightly burning scimitar of a moon was declining towards the horizon, and not far from it, to the west and north, the well-known constellation of Orion. Yonder also, blinking red and green, was the great Mars himself.

But it was not to study the stars that Harry had crept out of the tent, but to breathe fresher air, for there was no wind to-night. Not a branch stirred in the forest, not a leaf moved. The wild beasts had been scared far away, only now and then a lion roared, and the screams of the wild birds filled up the intervals. Dreadfully eerie they are to listen to on a night like this, and in such a lonely scene.

“Eeah – eee – ah – eeah – eeah – ah!” screamed one bird.

“Tak – tak – tak – tak!” – cried another.

“Willikin, willikin, willikin, willikin?” shrieked a third.

Then there are mournful unearthly yells and groans that would make the heart of a novice stand still with dread. He would feel convinced foul murder was being done in the gloomy depths of the forest. (It is possible the monkeys take their part in producing the cries one hears by night in forests of the tropics.)

But Harry could sleep no more.

The sentries were being relieved. Raggy had just turned up, and Somali Jack was about to turn in.

“Let us take a stroll down by the camp-fire,” said Harry. “I feel I must stretch my legs, night though it be.”

Together they went as far as the old camping ground, and were about to leave when a pained and weary groan fell on Harry’s ear.

He soon discovered whence it issued. From the lips of a poor half-naked dark figure, lying stabbed and dying on the grass.

All this he could see by the light of moon and stars. He sat down beside the poor creature and took his head on his lap. The white eyes rolled up towards him, the lips were parted in a grateful smile.

One word was all he said or could say.

“What is it, Jack?” asked Harry. “Interpret, please.”

“It only says thanks, sahib.”

“Run for water, Raggy.”

The dying slave boy drinks just one gulp of the water. Again the white eyes are turned towards Harry, again the lips are parted in a smile – and then he is still.

For ever still.

Perhaps it is because Harry was nervous and ill; but he cannot prevent a gush of tears to his eyes as he bends over this murdered boy.

“What a demon’s heart the man must have to commit a sin like this!”

Book Three – Chapter Six.

The Land of Depopulation – In a Beast-Haunted Wilderness – A Mystery – A Strange King

Three months have elapsed since the night Harry found the dying slave lad on the grass, near the old camp-fire Harry is as strong now as ever. Nay, he is even stronger. He has had a birthday since then, and now in his own mind calls himself a man.

He is a man in heart at all events, a man in pluck and a man in manliness.

The trio – Somali Jack, Raggy, and Harry – are very friendly now.

Only once did Jack allude to that night when they fled from Mahmoud’s camp. It is in terms of admiration and in broken English.

“You give me proper trashing that night. I think I feel your shut hand on my nose now. Wah-ee! he do make him smart, and my eyes all fill with water hat hat ha!”

Yes, Jack could afford to laugh now, for Harry was not a bad master to him.

Somali Jack is happier, and, to use his own words —

“I have one stake in de world now. I all same as one Arab, I have a soul. You, master, have said so. I believe what my master says. Of course I believe what he tell me. I not all same as one koodoo – die on de hill and rot. No, I float away, away, away, past de clouds, and past de stars to de bright land of love, where Jesu reigns. Oh yes, Somali Jack is happy and proud.”

The trio are now in an unknown land.

It might be called the Land of Depopulation, for long ago the few natives that slavery left have died or fled away. There is hardly a vestige of the remains of their villages, only here and there a kind of clearing with what appears to be a hedge around it. But if you pulled away the creepers on top of this you would find old rotten palisades – indication enough that those poor creatures had made some vain attempts at defending themselves against the inroads of the Arab invader.

Harry had not long continued in the caravan route that led to the land of the drunken king. The sights he came upon every now and then while following it were sickening. It was quite evident that of the hundred slaves whom Mahmoud had chosen, at least twenty had fallen by the way, in rather less than three weeks, and been left to perish in the bush or on the grass beneath a blazing sun.

He would have followed the more southern route, and endeavour to find out the whereabouts of his fellows, but such a proceeding would have been absurdly impracticable. A white slave is thought worth a thousand black at some of the courts of African kings. He could not have redeemed his men, and to have attempted to rescue them in any other way would have only ended in failure, and in slavery to himself and companions. No, there was at present no hope. But he had more than one plan which he meant to try when a chance should occur.

For the three months past they had had plenty of sport, and a world of adventures far too numerous to mention. Harry, however, had only a very scant supply of ammunition, and but little likelihood of obtaining any further supply. Every cartridge was therefore carefully hoarded, and only used either for the purpose of protection against wild beasts or to secure themselves food.

As to this latter they managed in a great measure without firing a shot. For, first and foremost, Somali Jack had a most nimble way of catching fish. He did it by getting into shallow streams, sometimes diving in under the water and dragging a fish out from under bank or rock where it had sought shelter.

Then he could twine grass ropes; these were stretched along in certain likely places, near which Jack concealed himself, spear in hand, all alert and ready. The other part of this peculiar hunt was performed by Harry and the boy Raggy. They managed, and that very successfully, as a rule, to chase wild deer, of which there were so many different sorts and sizes, down towards the clever Somali. In their headlong hurry one at least was almost sure to trip over the rope and fall. In a moment Jack was up and on him, and next minute – there was something good for dinner.

I wish I could describe to you one-thousandth part of all the curious things Harry noticed in natural history, not only among the larger animals, but among the smaller, namely, the birds, and among the smallest – the creeping creatures of the earth.

I wish I could describe to you a few of the lovely scenes he witnessed in this beast-haunted wilderness: the landscapes, the cloudscapes, the lovely sunsets, the wilderies of fruit and flower, and the scenes among the mountains, some of which, high, high up in the air, were even snow-capped, and ever at sunrise assumed that pearl-pink hue with purple shadow which once witnessed can never be forgotten in life. The scenes by river and lake were also most enchanting at times.

But do not think these wanderers had it all their own way. No, they went with their lives in their hands, and these lives were very often in jeopardy.

Poor little Raggy was once tossed by a herd of buffaloes. I say a herd of buffaloes advisedly, for really they seemed nearly all to have a fling at him. The last one pitched him up into a tree, where, for a time, he was an object of the most profound interest to a band of chattering apes. They could not conceive who or what the new arrival was, nor where he had come from.

Well, then, Somali Jack had to climb up and shake the branch to dislodge Raggy’s apparently dead body, while Harry stood under to catch it and break the fall.

But Raggy was not dead. Not a bit of him; and presently he got up and scratched his poll and gazed about him like a somnambulist.

“Am de buffaloes all gone, massa?” he inquired.

“The buffaloes, Rag? Yes, and it seems to me you are made of indiarubber; why, they played lawn tennis with you.”

“Well, massa,” said Raggy, “it was some fun to de buffaloes anyhow, and it not hurt Raggy much.”

Another day Harry had narrowly escaped being killed by a rhinoceros. Quiet enough these animals are at times, but whatever other travellers may say, I advise you to keep out of their track when they lose temper.

Somali Jack was one day posted behind his rope when down thundered a small herd of giraffes. Over went number three. Out came Jack and attacked him, but, like the witch in Tam o’ Shanter —

“Little wist he that beast’s mettle.”

One kick sent Jack flying yards and yards away; the blow alighted on his chest, and, strange to say, the blood sprang from his nose and mouth.

Jack said nobody could hit so hard as a giraffe unless his master, and he never tried again to spear a —

“Roebuck run to seed.”

They had now many rivers to cross and miles on miles to walk sometimes before they could find a ford. But the current seldom ran very strong. The worst of it was that often, even after they found the ford and got over, there was a marsh to cross, worse than any bog in old Ireland.

Many of these marshes were infested with crocodiles. Oh, how innocent these brutes can appear, basking in the sunshine on the banks, or lying in shallow streams with nothing out and up except their hideous heads!

Yonder, for example, is one immense skull, not far from the bank. He is asleep, is he not? Go a little closer. He never moves. You feel sure he is good-natured, and that the crocodile is a much-libelled reptile. Go closer still and look at him. Ugly enough he is, but so innocent-looking! You would like to smoothe him, wouldn’t you, little boy?

Snap! Where are you now? It is sincerely to be hoped that your mamma has another good little boy like you to supply your place, for you will never be seen again.

And your great “good-natured” crocodile is very playful now, and goes away swishing through the water to tell all the other crocodiles how very happy he feels, because he has a little boy in his stomach.

They came, at length, to a range of rugged hills which it took them a whole day to get across. They encamped at night in a dreary glen, and had to keep a great fire burning until the sun rose over the mountains, for this glen seemed to be the home par excellence of the lions. These monsters, many of which they saw, were the largest they had yet fallen in with.

They were evidently filled with resentment at the daring invasion of their territory, and made not only night hideous with their threatening and growling, but sleep quite impossible.

Harry was glad enough to continue the journey next day as early as possible, but they had not got far before a terrible thunderstorm made all pedal progression quite impossible for the time being. It was well they were pretty high up among the hills, for with the thunder and lightning came a wind of hurricane force; they could hear the great trees smashing in the forest beneath them, and noticed scores of wild beasts seeking sheltered corners in which to hide till the violence of the storm should abate.

Another night in this mountain forest; another night among the wild beasts.

Next day was bright and fine, but not for hours after did the sun appear, owing to the mists that were rising all over the land.

On the evening of that same day they came to the margin of what appeared at first to be a broad rolling river. There were a few native canoes on it.

One immensely large dug-out was soon observed coming towards them, so it was evident they were already seen. In the stern sheets, when it came near enough, Harry could descry a single figure sitting under the broad canopy of an umbrella.

No one else in the boat, and the figure astern not moving a muscle!

“How is it done?” said Harry to himself. “It is a mystery. Can these savages have invented electricity as a motor power?”

Nearer and nearer came the boat, but the mystery was as far from being explained as ever.

The individual who sat in the boat was a portly negro, very black, very comely and jolly-looking. He was dressed from the shoulders to the knees in a loose blue robe of cotton cloth. This appeared to be simply rolled round the loins and then carried over the shoulder. On his head he wore a skin hat with the hairy side out and a long tail hanging down behind it. Round his neck was a string of lions’ tusks, in his ears immense copper rings, in one hand a broad-bladed spear, and in the other a long shield of hide studded with copper nails.

The umbrella was a fixture behind him.

While Harry and his companions were still gazing at this singular being with a good deal of curiosity, not unmixed with apprehension, the prow of the boat touched land, and immediately the motor power was explained. This was, after all, only a big hulking negro who had been wading behind and pushing with his head. He had not come here unguarded, however. For dozens of armed canoes now made an appearance, and took up a position in two rows, one at each side of what was undoubtedly the royal barge.

The king stepped boldly on shore, and nodded and smiled to Harry in the most friendly way.

“Good morning,” said Harry, nodding and smiling in turn; “fine day, isn’t it?”

Of course the king could not reply, but leaning on his spear he walked three times round Harry and his companions, then three times round Harry alone. It was pretty evident he had never seen a white man before.

Then he touched Harry’s clothes, and felt all along them as one smoothes a dog. Then he said:

“Lobo! Lobo!” (Strange, or wonderful.)

He next proceeded to an examination of Harry’s face. He wetted the end of his blue robe in the lake and tried to rub the bloom off Harry’s cheeks.

“I don’t paint,” Harry said, quietly.

“Lobo!” said the king again.

Harry’s buttons now fixed the king’s attention.

He pulled the jacket towards him and tried to cut one off with the end of his spear.

Then Harry smacked his fingers for him, and the king started back with a fierce look in his eye.

“Lobo! Lobo!” he cried, excitedly.

“Keep your fingers to yourself, then,” said Harry.

But thinking he had gone too far, he immediately cut two buttons off and presented them to this queer king.

His majesty was all smiles again in a moment. He intimated his pleasure and gratitude in a neat little speech that Harry could make neither head nor tail of, but was glad to find that little Raggy could translate it even more freely than Somali Jack.

For from somewhere near these regions Raggy had originally come. So he told Harry; he also said, “I ’spect I has a mudder livin’ hereabouts some-wheres.”

“Would you know her, Raggy, if you saw her?”

“I not know her from any oder black lady,” replied Raggy, grandly; “’sides,” he added, “dis chile Raggy hab no wish to renew de ’quaintance.”

The warriors in the king’s canoes sat as motionless as if they had been made out of wood, and then tarred over and glued to their seats. They looked friendly, but it was quite evident they would take their cue from his majesty, and were just as ready to drown Harry in the lake as to give him a welcome.

“Peace at any price is the best policy in this case,” said Harry. “Eh, Raggy, what say you?”

“Suppose massa want to fight, den Raggy fight; suppose we fight, dey gobble us all up plenty quick; suppose we not fight, den dey make much of us and give us curry and chicken.”

“All right, Raggy, we’ll go in for the curried chicken. Tell this sable king that we have come a long long way to see him, and to give him some presents, and that we then want to pass through his country and go on our way in peace.”

All this Raggy duly translated, and Harry strongly suspected that he added a little bit of his own to it. But this is a liberty that interpreters very often take.

The king was laughing. The king was pleased. He pointed to the boat and led the way towards it and without a moment’s hesitation Harry stepped on board, and in another minute they were all away out in the open lake.

Book Three – Chapter Seven.

Amazons – The Lake of the Hundred Isles – The Feast of Flowers

When the king’s barge left the shore, shoved slowly along by the head of the big hulking negro, Harry, of course, had not the faintest notion whence he was being taken.

Perhaps he was just a trifle reckless. He was so at most times, but in this case I imagine he was in the right. For the worst thing one can do on meeting strange savages is to show mistrust or fear of them. If you mistrust them, they at once suspect you, and the consequences may sometimes be anything but pleasant.

It was not long before our hero found out that it was indeed a lake, and not a broad river, on which he was embarked, and that it was studded with about a hundred islands, over all of which this black host of theirs was evidently the potentate.

He landed on one of the largest of them, and on a kind of rude pier where nearly a hundred armed amazons were drawn up to receive their lord and his guests.

Harry afterwards found out that he kept ten amazons for every island, but they all lived near the royal residence, and were his especial body-guard. Fierce-looking, stalwart hussies they were, with knives in their girdles, spears in their hands, and leather-covered shields, that were nearly as big and wide as barn doors.

Over these shields they grinned and glared in a way that was really hideous. They rolled their eyes round and round incessantly, as if they had been moved like clock-work. Perhaps, thought Harry, they go in for eye-drill in this queer country. The reason of this optical movement, he was afterwards told, was to prove to the king that danger could come to him from no direction without their seeing it.

These amazons were dressed in sacks of cocoa-cloth, and wore tippets of skins not unlike those of your dandy coachmen in Hyde Park. From their legs and arms, behind and below, feathers stuck out, and as head-dresses their own hair was done up into an immense dome, which stood straight up and was adorned with the feathers of the red ibis.

All this Harry took in at a glance as he walked on behind the king, through an avenue of most splendid trees, towards his palace.

I must dismiss the palace with a single sentence. It was not unlike a haycock of immense size, with a door in the side, or like the half of a cocoanut turned upside down. It was in an enclosure, in the very middle of the island, and near it were the huts of the king’s amazons, the whole being defended by a strong palisade of roughly hewn wood.

The huts of his other warriors – and every one appeared to be a warrior in this island – were outside the fort and different in shape and appearance. They were, if anything, more elaborately built, and had verandahs supporting their roofs, which only proved that his majesty was a man of simple tastes, and preferred looking after the well-being of his subjects rather than his own.

One of the largest tents in the enclosure was set aside for Harry and his companions. It contained a dais-bed, covered with grass matting, an immense grass-stuffed pillow, and mats on the floor besides.

He had not been long in this tent ere an unarmed amazon entered, bearing a huge leafen basket, laden with the most delicious fruit, the perfume of which filled the whole room. She also brought and placed near it a huge pitcher of water.

This was all very gratifying, and Harry began to wonder where this strange king learned all his civility and hospitality, and he really felt a little sorry now that he had taken the liberty of smacking his majesty on the fingers when he was attempting to cut off a button.

“How, on the other hand,” he asked himself, “have this curious people escaped the raids and ravages of the plundering slaver Arabs?”

Perhaps the Arabs had not yet found them out, or, having found them out, deemed it impossible to attack them, so well protected were they by water.

Nothing was done to-day by Harry except to wander about all over this lovely island.

Indeed, the adjective “lovely” but poorly expresses the wealth and beauty of flower and foliage that met his gaze at every turn.

It seemed a veritable garden of Eden. It must have been miles in extent, yet the king assured him he might wander everywhere, and he would find neither wild beast nor loathsome dangerous reptile.

His majesty went to his tent and did not appear again that day, nor was he visible until late into the next.

Harry was walking about making friends with the cocks and hens, the goats and the pigs, and with several charmingly plumaged birds of the guinea-hen species, when he was summoned into the king’s presence.

The dusky monarch was seated in the middle of his tent on a mat. So black was he, and so dark was the hut, that, coming right in from the glare of the noonday sun, it was some time before Harry could see him or anything else. He heard the king’s hearty laugh, however, and went towards it.

He was beckoned to a mat on the floor, and fruit was handed to him.

Then the royal host began to show all the inquisitiveness of a child, and evinced so much curiosity that Harry could not answer his questions fast enough. But he delighted him greatly by saying that at home he too lived on an island.

The king was exceedingly tickled, though, when told through Raggy that we were subjects to a queen.

He laughed so immoderately that he was obliged to lie back and roll on his mat, and for quite three minutes could say nothing but “Lobo! Lobo! Lobo!”

In the midst of all this pleasant discourse two amazons entered, and helped the king to rise.

He said something which Raggy translated, “Come on for true.”

They went on “for true,” and soon found themselves in a grove and under a canopy of grass-cloth. On the green-sward they all squatted down to a banquet, the like of which Harry had not seen for many days.

It was not served on china, you may be sure, and there were no forks, only knives. The plates were of yellow-brown clay, and as soft as a brick. In the centre was a huge dish of curried rice; before each of his guests was placed a curried fowl. Then there were floury and well-cooked yams, sweet potatoes and plantains, and a large chattee of water.

Raggy ate up his fowl every bit, so did Somali Jack. Harry failed on his last drumstick, and the king laughed again, and cried, “Lobo! Lobo!”

Then there was more wandering about the island, and another banquet or fried fish and fruit on their return.

All the time Harry and Jack stuck to their rifles. One never knows what savages may turn out to be, and had anything occurred they were determined to sell their lives as dearly as possible.

Next day, and next, and next, were simply repetitions of the first, with this difference – that the king took his guests round his islands in his barge, rowed now by five dark-skinned boatmen on each side, and this will give you some idea of the size of it.

Every evening after supper, sitting out under the stars, the king being only dimly visible as a kind of shape, Harry had to tell stories of all the kings and potentates and countries in the world.

He got a little tired at last, and found it better and easier to invent tales of imagination, based upon the stories he had read, such as the novels of Cooper and Walter Scott, than to stick to plain geography and pure history. This pleased this strange king even better, and he was constantly saying, “Lobo!” during Harry’s recitals.

I dare say, however, that Raggy, through whom, as a medium, the stories had to pass, embellished them somewhat on his own account.

Among the gifts from Somali Jack’s packet that Harry presented to his majesty was a shirt and a pair of pyjamas. These he wore until they were black, albeit Harry had several times suggested that they should be washed.