Long Odds

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Lister gazed at him almost incredulously. "Of course, I'll have to go if you really mean it. Still, I would like to point out that in some respects you're not exactly a model yourself."

"That," said Desmond dryly, "is a fact I'm naturally quite aware of. I like a frolic now and then as well as most other men, but I've sense enough not to indulge in it when I'm out on business. The trouble is that what you have done you will very probably do again, and that wouldn't suit either me or Ormsgill. I'm afraid you'll have to take the boat north to-morrow."

CHAPTER VII

ORMSGILL KEEPS HIS WORD

Forest and compound were wrapped in obscurity, and the night was almost insufferably hot, when Nares, who had arrived there during the afternoon, sat in a room of the Mission of Our Lady of Pity. The little, heavily thatched dwelling stood with the mud-built church and rows of adherents' huts on the shadowy frontier of the debatable land whose dusky inhabitants were then plotting a grim retribution for their wrongs, and on the night in question black, impenetrable darkness shut it in. Though the smell of wood smoke was still in the steamy air, the cooking-fires had died out an hour ago, and there was no sound from any of the clustering huts. Nares, who sat, gaunt and worn in face, by an open window, could not see one of them. Still, he was looking out into the compound, and his attitude suggested expectancy. One could have fancied that he was listening for something.

"My boys heard in the last village we stopped at that there was another party coming up behind us, and it's quite likely that there is," he said. "The bushmen are generally right in these things. I've seen a whole village clear out half a day before a section or two of troops arrived, though it's hard to understand how they could possibly have known."

Father Tiebout, who lay in a canvas chair with the perspiration trickling down his forehead, smiled. "There are many other things beyond our comprehension in this country," he said, with a trace of dryness. "We have our senses and our reason. The negro has them, too, but he has something more – shall we call it the blind instinct of self-preservation? It is, at least, certain that it is now and then necessary to him. So you did not come by San Roque or the new outpost?"

"I did not. Still, how did you deduce it?"

The priest spread out his hands. "It is simple. One does not find an inhabited village within easy reach of a fort, my friend. The cause for that is obvious. You are listening for the other party?"

"Anyway, I was wondering whose it could be."

Father Tiebout smiled. "If there is a white man with the boys it is Thomas Ormsgill. I have been expecting him the last week. He will be here within the next two – if he is alive."

He spoke with a quiet certainty, as though the matter admitted of no doubt, and Nares added,

"Yes," he said, "that is a man who keeps his promise, but you could give him another week. One knows when the mail-boats arrive, but there might be difficulties when he got ashore. Anybody who wishes to go inland is apt to meet with a good many, especially if he isn't looked upon with favor by the Administration."

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."