Long Odds

Father Tiebout said nothing further. It was almost too hot to talk, though the silence that brooded over the little gap in the forest was unpleasantly impressive. It would not be broken until the moon rose and the beasts awoke. There were also times when Nares, who was not a nervous man, felt a curious instinctive shrinking from the blackness of the bush. It was too suggestive. One wondered what it hid, for that is a land where the Powers of Darkness are apparently omnipotent. It is filled with rapine and murder, and pestilence stalks through it unchecked.

At last a faint sighing refrain stole out of the silence, sank into it, and rose again, and Nares glanced at his companion, for he recognized that a band of carriers were marching towards the mission and singing to keep their courage up.

"I think you're right. They're coast boys," Father Tiebout said.

It was some ten minutes later when there was a patter of naked feet in the compound, and a clamor from the huts. Then a white man walked somewhat wearily up the veranda stairway into the feeble stream of light. It was characteristic that Nares was the first to shake hands with him, while Father Tiebout waited with a little quiet smile. Ormsgill turned towards the latter.

"Have you a hut I can put the boys in? That's all they want," he said. "They're fed. We stopped to light our fires at sunset."

The greeting was not an effusive one in view of the difficulties and privations of the journey, but neither of Ormsgill's companions had expected anything of that kind from him. It was also noticeable that there was none of the confusion and bustle that usually follows the arrival of a band of carriers. This was a man who went about all he did quietly, and was willing to save his host inconvenience. The priest went with him to a hut, and the boys were disposed of in five minutes, and when they came back Ormsgill dropped into a chair.

"Well," he said, "I'm here. Caught the first boat after I got your letter. I think it was your letter, padre, though Nares signed it."

"At least," said Father Tiebout, "we both foresaw the result of it. But you have had a long march. Is there anything I can offer you?"

"A little cup of your black coffee," said Ormsgill.

Nares laughed softly. "He's a priest, as well as a Belgian. I believe they teach them self-restraint," he added. "Still, when I saw you walking up that stairway I felt I could have forgiven him if he had flung his arms about your neck."

"You see I had expected him," and Father Tiebout set about lighting a spirit lamp.

"With a little contrivance one can burn rum in it," he added. "There are times when I wish it was a furnace."

Ormsgill smiled and shook his head. "You and other well meaning persons occasionally go the wrong way to work, padre," he said. "Would you pile up the Hamburg gin merchants' profits, or encourage the folks here to build new sugar factories? You can't stop the trade in question while the soil is fruitful and the African is what he is."

"What the white man has made him," said Father Tiebout.

"I believe the nigger knew how to produce tolerably heady liquors and indulged in them before the white man brought his first gin case in," said Ormsgill reflectively. "In any case, Lamartine was a trader, which is, after all, a slightly less disastrous profession to the niggers here than a government officer, and I did what I could for him. From your point of view I've no doubt I acquired a certain responsibility. Could you do anything useful with £200 or £300 sterling, padre?"

"Ah," said the little priest, "one cannot buy absolution."

Nares smiled. It was seldom he let slip an opportunity of inveigling Father Tiebout into a good-humored discussion on a point of this kind. "I fancied it was only we others who held that view," he said. Then he turned to Ormsgill. "He is forgetting, or, perhaps, breaking loose from his traditions. After all, one does break away in Africa. It is possible it was intended that one should do so."

"Still," persisted Ormsgill, "with £300 sterling one could, no doubt, do something."

Father Tiebout, who ignored Nares' observations, tinkered with his lamp before he turned to Ormsgill with a little light in his eyes. "Taking the value of a man's body at just what it is just now one could, perhaps, win twenty human souls. Of these three or four could be sent back into the darkness when we were sure of them. Ah," and there was a little thrill in his voice, "if one had only two or three to continue the sowing with."

"In this land," said Ormsgill, "the reaper is Death. Their comrades would certainly sell them to somebody or spear them in the bush. The priests of the Powers of Darkness would see they did it."

"Where that seed is once sown there must be a propagation. One can burn the plant with fire or cut it down, but it springs from the root again, or a grain or two with the germ of life indestructible in it remains. Flung far by scorching winds or swept by bitter floods, one of those grains finds a resting place where the soil is fertile. Here a little and there a little, that crop is always spreading."

Ormsgill turned to Nares. "You could do something with the sum alluded to?"

Nares shook his head, and there was a shadow of pain in his lean face. "I am not fixed as Father Tiebout is," he said. "His faith is the official one. They dare not steal his followers from him. Besides, I have never bought the body of a man. Sometimes I heal them, and if they are grateful they are driven away from me." He broke off for a moment with a curious little laugh. "I am an empty voice in the darkness that very few dare listen to. Still, I will take a case of London packed drugs from you."

The Belgian spread his thin hands out. "Four villages snatched from the pestilence! It was his care that saved them. How many men's bodies he has healed he can not tell you, but I think that a careful count is kept of all of them."

"Well," said Ormsgill quietly, "there is £600 to your joint credit in Lisbon. You should get the bank advices when the next mail comes in. You can apportion it between you."

Nares stood up with a flush in his worn face, and spoke awkwardly, but Father Tiebout sat very still. A little glow crept into his eyes, and he said a few words in the Latin tongue. Then Ormsgill thrust his chair back noisily and moved towards the lamp.

"I almost think that coffee should be ready," he said.

Father Tiebout served it out, and when the cups were laid aside Nares looked at Ormsgill with a little smile.

"You have not been long away, but one could fancy you were glad to get back again," he said.

Ormsgill's face hardened. "In some respects I am. The folks I belonged to were not the same. My views seemed to pain them. It cost them an effort to bear with me. Still, that was perhaps no more than natural. One loses touch with the things he has been used to in this country."

"Sometimes," said Father Tiebout, "one grows out of it, and that is a little different. Our friend yonder once went home, too, but now I think he will stay here altogether, as I shall do, unless I am sent elsewhere."

Nares smiled. "The padre is right, as usual. I went home – and the folks I had longed for 'most broke my heart between them. It seemed that I was a failure, and that hurt me. They wanted results, the tale of souls, and I hadn't one that I was sure of to offer as a trophy. One, they said, could heal men's bodies in America. As you say, one falls out of line in Africa."

There was a wistfulness which he could not quite repress in his voice, and Ormsgill nodded sympathetically.

"Oh," he said, "I know. It hurts hard for awhile. We are most of us the cast-offs and the mutineers here. Still, in one respect, I sometimes think Father Tiebout's people are wiser. They don't ask for results."

The little priest once more spread his hands out. "The results," he said, "will appear some day, but that is not our concern. It is sufficient that a man should do the work that is set out for him. And now we will be practical. Have you any news of Herrero?"

"He is a hundred miles north of us in Ugalla's country, and I am going on there. You will have to find me a few more carriers. It was Miss Figuera told me."

"Perhaps one can expect a little now Dom Clemente is in authority. He is honest as men go in Africa, and at least he is a soldier. Well, you shall have the carriers in a week or so."

Ormsgill laughed. "I want them to-morrow. There is a good deal to do. I have the boys Domingo stole to trace when I have bought the woman back from Herrero."

"Bought!" said Father Tiebout with a twinkle in his eyes. "If Herrero is not willing to sell?"

"Then," said Ormsgill dryly, "I shall have considerable pleasure in making him."

He stretched himself wearily with a little yawn. "And now we will talk about other matters."

It was an hour later when he retired to rest and, hot as it was, sank into sound sleep within ten minutes, but although he rose early and roused the little priest to somewhat unusual activity, several days had passed before his new carriers were collected and ready to march. They were sturdy, half-naked pagans, and appeared astonished when he gave them instructions in a few words of the bush tongue and bore with their slow comprehension instead of applying the stick to their dusky skin, which was what they had somewhat naturally expected from a white man.

He shook hands with Nares and Father Tiebout in the sloppy compound early one morning when the mists were streaming from the dripping forest, and looked at the little priest with a twinkle in his eyes.

"I haven't asked you how you got those boys," he said. "Still, it must have cost you something to secure the good will of whoever had the privilege of supplying them."

He turned to Nares as if to invite his opinion, which was unhesitatingly offered him. The latter, at least, would make no compromise.

"It certainly did," he said. "I am glad you did not ask me to hire you the boys. The system under which he obtained them is an iniquity."

Father Tiebout smiled. "The object, I think, was a pious one. One has to use the means available."

"Anyway," said Ormsgill, "the responsibility and the cost is mine."

The priest shook his head. "At least, you can take this gift from me," he said. "It is not much, but one does with pleasure what he can."

It was offered in such a fashion that Ormsgill could only make his grateful acknowledgments, though he had grounds for surmising that the gift would cost the giver months of stringent self-denial, and there was already very little sign of luxury at the Mission. Then he called to his carriers, who swung out of the compound with their burdens in single file, slipping and splashing in the mire. The two men he had left behind stood watching them until the last strip of fluttering cotton had vanished into the misty forest when Father Tiebout looked at his companion with a little smile.

"One could consider the venture our friend has undertaken a folly, but still I think he will succeed," he said. "One could almost fancy that the Powers above us hold the men who attempt such follies in their special keeping."

Nares, as it happened, had been almost uncomfortably stirred during the last ten minutes, but he was Puritan to the backbone, and usually endeavored, at least, to prevent what he felt carrying him away. He was also as a rule ready to join issue with the little priest on any point that afforded him an opportunity.

"There is a difficulty," he said. "I'm not sure he would admit the existence of all the Powers you believe in. There are so many of them. One would fancy that faith was necessary."

Father Tiebout smiled at him again. "Ah," he said, "they who know everything have doubtless a wide charity."

CHAPTER VIII

THE BONDSWOMAN

A small fire burned on the edge of the ravine, flinging out pale red flashes and an intolerable smoke, for the wood was green and wet. It had been raining heavily, and the whole forest that rolled down the slopes of the plateau was filled with a thick white steam. Filmy wisps of it drifted out of the darkness which hid the towering trunks, and streamed by the girl who crouched beside the fire cooking her white lord's evening meal. She was comely, though her face and uncovered arms were of a warm brown. A wide strip of white cotton fell from one shoulder, and half revealed the slenderness of her shapely form. It also covered certain significant discolored bruises on the soft brown skin. The look in her eyes just then, perhaps, accounted for them, for it vaguely suggested intelligence, and a protest against her fate, in place of the hopeless apathy which, after all, saves the native of that country a great deal of trouble. He has been taught drastically that any objection he might reasonably make would certainly be futile and very apt to produce unwished-for results.

A wall of dripping forest rose above the fire, but behind the girl the ground sloped sharply to the brink of a swollen river which rose in the plateaux of the interior, and a little, tattered tent was pitched on the edge of the declivity. In front of it two somewhat ragged white men lay listlessly upon a strip of waterproof ground sheeting. They were worn with travel and a long day's labor, for they had been engaged since sunrise in raft building and ferrying their equipment and trade goods across the river, and, as it happened, had lost most of their provisions in the process. They were of widely different birth and character, and cordially disliked each other, though they had both first seen the light in Africa and community of interest held them together.

Gavin was tall and lean and hard, with an expressionless bronzed face, the son of an English ostrich farmer who had married a Boer woman. He had come into that country on foot with one other survivor of the party he had started with after a difference of opinion with the Boer administration. The others had died with their oxen during their two years' wandering in the wilderness. His companion Herrero passed for a Portuguese, though his hair would curl and his lips were a trifle thick. He was spare in form, and his face was of a muddy yellow with the stamp of sensuality and cruelty in it. He had also been drinking freely, though that is not as a rule a Latin vice, and was still very wet from his labors in the river. He had lower legs like broomsticks, and his torn, drenched trousers clung tightly about his protuberant knees.

"One could fancy that we have been bewitched," he said. "Trouble has followed us all the journey. There was a native woman who looked at us as we left San Roque, and she made a sign."

Gavin laughed contemptuously. "The loads," he said, "were too heavy. It is not economical to overdrive these cattle. One must remember the trek-ox's back."

Herrero blinked at the forest with something that suggested apprehension in his eyes, and it was not difficult to fancy that it and all it held was hostile to the white man. It seemed to crowd in upon him menacingly as the fire leapt up, vague, black, and impenetrable, an abode of unformulated terror and everlasting shadow.

"I have brought up the same loads with fewer boys before," he said. "They did not fall lame or die, as some of these have done. It is known that there is black witchcraft in this bush. There are white men who have gone into it and did not come out again."

"They were probably easier with their carriers than is advisable," and Gavin smiled grimly as he dropped a big hand on a cartridge in his bandolier. "This is a certain witchcraft cure. Still, you have to make your mind up. We can not go on, and take all the trade goods, without provisions."

His companion raised one shoulder in protest against the trouble fate had heaped upon them, for the trade goods were worth a good deal in the country that lay before them.

"It takes almost as much to keep a man in strength whether he marches light or loaded," he said. "It would ruin me if we left any more behind. Boys are scarce just now. One could, perhaps, get provisions in another week's march."

"The boys can not make it," and it was evident that Gavin was languidly contemptuous of his comrade's indecision. "You must leave a few here or you will lose half of them on the way."

He, at least, could face a crisis resolutely, but it was clear that he, too, regarded the carriers as chattels that had a commercial value only, for he was quite aware that, since that was one of the sterile belts, those who were left behind would in all probability die. The men whose fate they were discussing lay among the wet undergrowth apart from them, and Herrero, who appeared to be glancing towards them, raised himself a trifle suddenly.

"Something moves. There in the bush," he said.

"One of the boys," said Gavin, who saw nothing, though his eyes were keen. "Lie down. You have been taking more cognac than is wise lately."

Herrero shrugged his shoulders. "There is always something in the bush. It comes and goes when the boys are asleep," he said. "It is not pleasant that one should see it."

Gavin scarcely smiled. He was growing a trifle impatient with his comrade, who could not recognize when it was necessary to make a sacrifice, and he was ready for his meal. By and by Herrero called to the girl, who filled a calabash from the iron cooking pot hung above the fire, and laid it down in front of him with two basins. The trader lifted a portion of the savory preparation in a wooden spoon and smelled it.

"The pepper is insufficient. How often must one tell you that?" he said, and rising laid a yellow hand upon her arm.

The girl shrank back from him, but he followed her, still holding her arm, and nipped it deeply between the nails of his thumb and forefinger. He did it slowly, and with a certain relish, while his face contracted into a malicious grin. For a moment a fierce light leapt into the girl's eyes, but the torturing grip grew sharper, and it faded again. The man dropped his hand when at last she broke into a little cry, and stooping for the calabash she went back towards the fire. Gavin, who had looked on with an expressionless face, turned to his comrade.

"If you do that too often I think you will be sorry, my friend," he said. "She will cut your throat for you some day."

"No," said Herrero, "it is not a thing that is likely to happen if one uses the stick sufficiently."

His companion smiled in a curious fashion, but said nothing. His mother's people had long ruled the native with a heavy hand, and he had no hesitation in admitting that leniency is seldom advisable. Still, he recognized that in spite of his apathetic patience one may now and then drive the negro over hard, so that when life becomes intolerable he somewhat logically grows reckless and turns upon his oppressors in his desperation, which was a thing that Herrero apparently did not understand.

In the meanwhile the girl crouched silently by the fire, stirring the blistering peppers into the cooking pot, a huddled figure robed in white with meekly bent head and the marks of the white man's brutality upon her dusky body. Every line of the limp figure was suggestive of hopelessness. She might have posed for a statue of Africa in bondage. Still, as it happened, she and the boys who lay apart among the dripping undergrowth glanced now and then towards the forest with apathetic curiosity. Gavin's ears were good, but, after all, he had not depended upon his hearing for life and liberty, as the others had often done, and their keenness of perception was not in him. They knew that strangers were approaching stealthily through the bush. Indeed, they knew that one had flitted about the camp for some little while, but they said nothing. It was the white man's business, and nothing that was likely to result from it could matter much to them.

The fire blazed up a little, but, save for its snapping and the roar of the swollen river, there was silence in the camp, until Gavin rose to one knee with a little exclamation. He had heard nothing, but at last his trained senses had given him a sub-conscious warning that there was something approaching. Just then the girl stirred the fire, and the uncertain radiance flickered upon the towering trunks. It drove an elusive track of brightness back into the shadow, and Herrero scrambled to his feet as a man strode into the light.

He stopped and stood near the fire, dressed in thorn-rent duck, with the wet dripping from him and a little grim smile in his face, and it was significant that although he had nothing in his hands Gavin reached out for the heavy rifle that lay near his side. Strangers are usually received with caution in that part of Africa, and he recognized the man. As it happened, the girl by the fire recognized him, too, and ran forward with a little cry. After all, he had been kind to her while she lived with Lamartine, and it may have been that some vague hope of deliverance sprang up in her mind, for she stopped again and crouched in mute appeal close at his side. Ormsgill laid a hand reassuringly upon her brown shoulder.

He had not spoken a word yet, and there was silence for a moment or two while the firelight flared up. It showed Gavin watching him motionless with the rifle that glinted now and then on his knee, Herrero standing with closed hands and an unpleasant scowl on his yellow face, and the boys clustering waist-deep in the underbrush. Then the trader spoke.

"What do you want?" he said.

"This woman," said Ormsgill simply. "I am willing to buy her from you."

Herrero laughed maliciously. "She is not for sale. You should not have let her slip through your fingers. It is possible you could have made terms with Lamartine."

Ormsgill disregarded the gibe. Indeed, it was one he had expected.

"That," he said, "is not quite the point. Besides, one could hardly fancy that you are quite correct. Everything is for sale in this part of Africa. It is only a question of the figure. You have not heard my offer."

"In this case it would not be a great temptation," and Herrero's grin was plainer. "The girl is now and then mutinous, and that lends the affair a certain piquancy. When she has been taught submission I shall probably grow tired of her and will give her to you. Until then the breaking of her in will afford me pleasure. In fact, as I have never been defied by a native yet I feel that to fail in this case would be a stain on my self-respect."

"I almost think my offer would cover that," said Ormsgill dryly. "It seems to me your self-respect has been sold once or twice before."

Herrero disregarded him, though his face grew a trifle flushed. "Anita," he said, "come here."

The girl rose when Ormsgill let his hand drop from her shoulder, and gazed at him appealingly. Then as he made no sign she turned away with a little hopeless gesture, moved forward a few paces, and stopped again when the trader reached out for a withe that lay on the ground sheet not far from where he stood.

"It would," he said with a vindictive smile, "have saved her trouble if you had stayed away."

"Stop," said Ormsgill sharply, and striding forward stood looking at him. "You have shown how far you would go, which was in one way most unwise of you since you have made it a duty to take the girl from you. What is more to the purpose, it will certainly be done. There are two ways of obtaining anything in this country. One is to buy it, and the other to fight for it. I am willing to use either."

Herrero who saw the glint in his eyes, backed away from him, and flashed a warning glance at Gavin, who turned to Ormsgill quietly.

"I am," he said in English, "willing to stand by, and see fair play, since it does not seem to be altogether a question of business. Still, if it seems likely that you will deprive me of my comrade's services I shall probably feel compelled to take a hand in. He has a few good points though they're not particularly evident, and I can't altogether afford to lose him."

Herrero, who glanced round the camp, waved his hand towards the boys. "I will call them to beat you back into the bush."

Ormsgill raised his voice, and there was a sharp crackling of undergrowth, while here and there a dusky figure materialized out of the shadow.

"As you see, they have guns," he said.

Gavin smiled and tapped his rifle. "Still, they can't shoot as I can. Hadn't you better send them away again, and if you have any offer to make Mr. Herrero get on with it? One naturally expected something of this kind."