Long Odds

"Herrero now and then comes up this way?"

The missionary nodded. "He is the thorn in our side," he said. "Domingo, his associate, as of course you know, rambles through the back country. There is no one else to cause us anxiety, but Herrero has an old grudge against us. There were villages in these valleys when he first came here, and he swept them almost clean. We gathered up the remnant of the people, and now they will not buy his rum from him."

"If the news we got with our last supplies is correct he can not be more than a few days' march away," the younger man broke in. "I have been wondering how often he will pass us by. Some day he will come down on us. It's a sure thing."

Nares straightened himself a trifle. He had for several years borne almost all a man could bear and live through in that land, and after he left Ormsgill had fled inland, proscribed, finding no safety anywhere until his countrymen at their peril had offered him shelter at the mission. Besides, he had fever and prickly heat, which tries the meekest white man's patience, and it was New England stock he sprang from. He was a Puritan by birth as well as training, of the old grim Calvinistic strain, and his forbears had believed that the sword of the Lord is now and then entrusted to human hands. In that faith they had faced their king at Naseby, and in later days and another land held their own at Bunker Hill, and again crushed the Southern slave-owners' riflemen. It awoke once more deep down in the heart of their descendant as he sat on the mission veranda that night.

"What will you do then?" he said. "It sometimes seems to me that we have borne enough. One could almost wonder if there is anything more than prudence in our non-resistance. That alone seldom carries one very far."

A faint sparkle crept into the eyes of the younger man, for there was also a capacity for righteous wrath in him, but his elder companion raised a restraining hand.

"What can we do that will not bring down trouble on our followers' heads?" he asked.

Nares had not slept for several nights, and that coming on top of his other troubles had its effect on him, for he was, after all, very human, and the white man's self-restraint is apt to grow feeble in that land where his passions usually grow strong. Now and then, indeed, it breaks down altogether suddenly.

"Somebody must suffer for every reform," he said. "It seems that a sacrifice is demanded, and the ban is upon us still. Here, at least, the cost of man's progress is the shedding of blood." Then he made a little forceful gesture. "They are arming in the bush. In another month or two there will be very grim doings at San Roque."

The older man changed the subject abruptly. "You have your own course to consider. Have you come to a decision yet? I almost think if you surrendered to a responsible officer the Society has influence enough to secure your acquittal. After all, there are a few honest men upon the coast."

Nares looked at him with a curious little smile. "It is possible that I might escape with my liberty, but not until those who hate us had blackened my character and flung discredit upon the aims and methods of the men who sent me here. Is my acquittal worth what it would cost your Society? Would the folks down yonder miss such an opportunity as my trial would afford them of making us out political intriguers and destroyers of authority?"

He broke off for a moment, and laughed softly. "Still, they can't very well have a trial without a prisoner, and I shall wait in the bush until Ormsgill overtakes me. I have left word for him here and there with men who I think will not betray me."

"Why shouldn't you stay here?" asked the younger man.

"And bring the authorities down upon you? You know the cost of harboring me. Still, I will wait a day or two. Ormsgill must go inland by the road through the next valley, and if he has escaped the troops, there should be news of him any hour now."

The others said nothing further. They knew those in authority had, perhaps, naturally little love for them, and would make the most of the opportunity if it became evident that they had sheltered a proscribed man. After all, they had a duty to their flock and the men who had sent them out. Nares, who guessed their thoughts, smiled at them.

"It is all decided," he said. "When Ormsgill comes up I, believing as I do in the straitest teaching of the Geneva fathers, am going into the interior with him to accomplish the work he has undertaken for the repose of the soul of the rum trader Lamartine."

Again his companions made no answer. After all, the creeds now and then grow vague in Africa, or, perhaps, in the anguish of life in the dark land they are purged of their narrowness and amplified. Besides this, it was evident that Nares was a trifle off his balance. There was silence for the next half hour. One of the men had toiled with the hoe among his flock that day, and the other had come back from a long march to a native village. The night was clear and cool and wonderfully still, and the peace of the garden valley crept in on them. One could almost have fancied the mission had been translated far from Africa, where tranquillity that is not tempered with apprehension seldom lasts very long. Then a sharp cry, harsh with human pain and terror, rang out of the soft darkness, and the man in charge of the station rose quietly from his chair.

"Herrero's men are here. Our time has come at last," he said.

The others rose with him, and stood very still for a moment or two listening until the cry arose again more shrilly, and there was a clamor among the unseen huts. The crash of a long flintlock gun broke through it, and in the midst of the uproar they heard a patter of naked feet. Half-seen shadowy figures swept past among the leaves, and a red glare that grew momentarily brighter leapt up behind the mango trees.

"Herrero's men," said the older man again, as though in the bitterness of the moment that was all that occurred to him.

They followed him down the stairway, though none of them knew what they meant to do, and, while now and then a half-naked figure dashed past them, down a narrow path between the trees, until the thatched roofs of the village rose close in front of them. One of them was blazing fiercely, and in another few minutes they saw a little group of dusky figures scurrying to and fro with burdens in the glare. A man among the latter also saw the newcomers, for apparently in drunken bravado he flung up a long gun, and there was a flash and a detonation as he fired at random. Nares saw him clearly, a big, brawny man swaying half-naked on his feet with short cotton draperies hanging from his waist, and his truculence was a guide to his profession. He was one of the hired ruffians who escort the labor recruits to the coast, and the African has no more grievous oppressor than the negro who acts as the white man's deputy.

Still, the missionaries saw very little more just then, for at the flash of the gun a swarm of terror-stricken boys who had been lurking there broke out from the shadow of the outlying huts, and swept madly up the path. Nares ran forward to meet them, calling to them in a native tongue, but it was not evident that they understood him, for they ran on. He felt one of his comrade's hands upon his shoulder, but he shook it off, and clutched at one of the flying men nearest him. He was overwrought that night, and his patience had gone. An unreasoning fury of indignation came upon him, and in the midst of it he remembered that it was most unlikely Herrero's boys would do more than attempt to overawe any one who might venture to resist them with their guns. Yet here was a flock of sturdy men flying in wild panic from a handful of ruffians. Perhaps this was natural. The men had seen what came of resistance, and had been taught drastically that it was wisest to submit to the white man and those whom he permitted to persecute them.

In any case, Nares's efforts availed him nothing, for the crowd of fugitives surged about him and his companions and bore them along. They could neither make head against it nor struggle clear, and were jostled against each other and driven forward until the crowd grew thinner abreast of the mission house where several paths that led to the hillslopes and the bush branched off. Then at last they reeled out from among the negroes, and while they stood gasping, Nares looked at the man in charge of the station with a question in his eyes. The latter made a little gesture of resignation.

"That is certainly Herrero's work, and I think he has given them rum, but there is nothing we can do," he said. "They may burn a hut or two, but they can be built again, and the boys – I am thankful – have taken to the bush. We will go back to the house."

This was not exactly to Nares' mind, but he recognized that there was wisdom in it, and they went up the little stairway and sat down once more upon the veranda. Now and then a hoarse shouting reached them, and the glare of burning thatch grew brighter, but nobody came near to trouble them. After all, a missionary's color counted for something, and it was a perilous thing for a negro who had not direct authority to meddle with him. Still, the older man's face was troubled.

"They will go away by and by, and there is, fortunately, very little in the huts," he said. "There is only one thing I am anxious about. Our store shed stands in a thicket among the trees yonder close beneath us. We built it there not to be conspicuous, and they may not notice it, but it is only a few weeks since our supplies came in – drugs and cloth, besides tools, and goods that we could not replace."

Nares made a little gesture of comprehension. He knew that the finances of the stations in that country are usually somewhat strained, and that when supplies went missing on the journey from the coast, as they sometimes did, the efforts of those they were intended for were apt to be crippled for many months.

"The place is locked?" he said.

"It is," said the younger man with a little smile. "After all, the boys are human. The door and building are strong enough, and the roof is iron. They can not burn it."

Nares glanced at his older companion and saw that there was still concern in his face. Half an hour dragged by, and they sat still struggling with the uneasiness that grew upon them. There was less shouting in the village, and the fire was evidently dying down, but now and then a hoarse clamor reached them. Nares felt that to sit there and do nothing was a very hard thing. At last the younger man pushed his chair back sharply.

"I think they have found where the store shed is. They are coming here," he said.

"I wonder who has told them," said his companion.

A patter of feet grew nearer, and Nares felt his mouth grow dry as he forced himself to sit still and listen, until several shadowy figures flitted out from among the trees. Then the older man's question was answered, for one of them dragged a Mission boy along with him. He carried a hide whip in one hand, and turned towards the veranda with a truculent laugh as he brought it down on his captive's quivering limbs.

"Ah," said the younger man with sharp incisiveness, "I do not think one could blame that boy."

More figures appeared behind the others, and they flitted across the strip of open space towards the store shed, after which there were hoarse shouts and a sound of hammering which ceased again. Then Herrero's boys came back by twos and threes, big, muscular negroes with short draperies fluttering from their hips, some of them lurching drunkenly. Three or four also carried long flintlock guns, and the one who had the whip still dragged the Mission boy along. They stopped in the clear space beneath the house, and Nares, who felt his heart beat, set his lips tight as one of them strode forward to the foot of the short veranda stairway. He was almost naked, and for a moment or two the white men sat still, and looked at him. It was, they felt, just possible that at the last moment his assurance would fail him. Perhaps, he understood what they were thinking, for he made a little contemptuous gesture.

"We want the key to the store," he said in halting Portuguese.

Then Nares turned to the head of the station. "You mean to give it him?"

"No," said the older man simply. "If they are able to break into the shed I can not help it, but, at least, I will do nothing to make it easier for them. I am the Society's steward and these goods are entrusted to me."

Nares looked at his younger companion, and saw a little smile in his eyes. It was clear that force would be useless, even if they had been willing to resort to it, but passive resistance was not forbidden them, and while apt to prove perilous it might avail, since it was scarcely probable that Herrero's boys could find the key. Then the younger man turned to the negro.

"We will never give you the key," he said.

"Then we will come and take it," said the man below.

He signed to his companions, and when three or four of them gathered about him clamoring excitedly Nares felt his blood tingle and his face grow hot. Perhaps it was the fever working in him, and he was certainly overwrought, and, perhaps, it was a subconscious awakening of the white man's pride. After all, the men of his color held dominion, and it was an intolerable thing that one of them should submit to personal indignity at a negro's hand. A little quiver ran through him, but his restraint did not break down until the big truculent negro came up the stairway and laid a greasy black hand upon the shoulder of the worn and haggard man who ruled the station. He shook him roughly, grinning as he did it, and then Nares' self-control suddenly left him. Swinging forward on his left foot he struck at the middle of the heavy, animal face, and the negro staggering went backwards down the stairway. Then with the sting of his knuckles a change came over Nares, for the passions he had long held in stern subjection were suddenly unloosed. At last he had broken down under a tension that had been steadily growing intolerable, and he turned on his persecutors as other men of his faith have done. When men of that kind strike they strike shrewdly.

There was also a change in the negroes' attitude. They had maltreated their own countrymen at their will, but they had as yet never laid hands upon a white man. Perhaps, it was the rum Herrero had given them which had stirred their courage, and, perhaps, they regarded a missionary as a good-humored fool who had for some inconceivable reason flung the white man's prerogative away. In any case, they were coming up the stairway, three or four of them, and now the first man carried a matchet, an instrument which resembles an old-fashioned cutlass. Nares, who asked for no directions, sprang into the room behind him where one of the trestle cots not unusual in that country stood. It had a stout wooden frame, and he rent one bar from the canvas laced to it. In another moment he was back at the head of the stairway where the man in charge of the station stood, frail, and haggard, but very quiet, with his thin jacket rent open where the negro had seized him. A foot or two below him the man with the matchet was coming up, naked to the waist, and half-crazed with rum. Nares could see his eyes in the moonlight, and that was enough.

He swung the bar high with both hands, and it descended on the negro's crown. The man went backwards, but another who carried a long gun sprang over him, and the heavy bar came crashing down on his naked arm. Then it whirled again, and there was a curious thud as it left its mark upon a dusky face. There was a clamor from the men below, a gasp behind Nares, and a folded canvas chair struck the next negro on the breast. He, too, lost his balance, and in another moment the stairway was empty except for one of the dusky men who lay still upon the lower steps of it. Nares stood on the veranda, with a suffused face, and the perspiration dripping from him, and smiled curiously when the man in charge of the station glanced at him with wonder and a vague reproof in his eyes.

"I am not sure that I have anything to regret," he said. "They are coming back again."

Herrero's boys were once more at the foot of the stairway, trampling on their comrade as they scrambled over him, but there were now two men with extemporized weapons at the head of it who stood above them and had them at a disadvantage. Nares was, however, never quite clear as to what happened during the next few minutes, for an unreasoning fury came upon him, and he saw only the woolly heads and dusky faces as he gasped and smote, though he was vaguely conscious that now and then a shattered chair somebody whirled by the legs swung above his head. Then a long gun flashed, and the detonation was answered by a sharper, ringing crash. One of Herrero's boys screamed shrilly, and the half-naked figures went scrambling down the stairway. They had scarcely floundered clear of it when a man in white duck appeared in the space below, and flung up a rifle, and another of the boys who went down headlong lay writhing horribly in the sand. After that there was a shouting and a patter of flying feet, and further dusky men with matchets and Snider rifles poured out of the path that wound down the hillside. Nares quietly laid the bar he held against the wall, and turned to the others with a gasp.

"It's Ormsgill," he said.

CHAPTER XXIV

BENICIA MAKES A BARGAIN

Except for the two unsightly objects that lay in the soft moonlight, there was no sign of Herrero's boys when Ormsgill walked up the stairway with a rifle in his hand. A little smoke curled from the breech which he opened before he shook hands with Nares.

"It's fortunate I knew where you were, and came round to pick you up," he said, and turned to the head of the station, who leaned upon the balustrade apparently shaken and bewildered by what had happened.

"I came up behind Herrero most of the way, and when there were signs that we were getting closer I sent one of my boys on to creep in upon his camp two or three days ago. From what he told me when he came back I fancied there was mischief on foot, and I pushed on as fast as possible. Considering everything, it seems just as well I did."

The other man appeared unwilling to let his gaze wander beyond the veranda, which was in one way comprehensible. There was shrinking in his face, and his voice was strained and hoarse.

"It was so sudden – it has left me a trifle dazed," he said. "I am almost afraid the trouble is not over yet."

Ormsgill smiled reassuringly. "I scarcely think – you – have any cause to worry. There is no doubt that Herrero inspired his boys, and attempts of this kind, as no doubt you are aware, have been made on mission stations before, but it's certain he would disclaim all knowledge of what they meant to do, and will be quite content to let the matter go no further. That is, at least, so far as anybody connected with the Mission is concerned."

"I am afraid he may find some means of laying the blame on you."

"It is quite likely," and Ormsgill laughed. "After all, it's a thing I'm used to, and, you see, I'm proscribed already. As it happens, so is Nares. He should never have left me. I have no doubt Herrero, who has friends in authority, will endeavor to make him regret his share in to-night's proceedings."

Nares glanced at one of the rigid figures that lay beneath him in the moonlight. He saw the naked black shoulders, and the soiled white draperies that had fallen apart from the ebony limbs, and a little shiver ran through him. The heat of the conflict had vanished now, and the pale light showed that his face was drawn and gray.

"I struck that man," he said. "I don't know what possessed me, but I think I meant to kill him. In one way, the thing is horrible."

"Well," said Ormsgill dryly, "it is also very natural. The impulse you seem to shrink from is lurking somewhere in most of us. In any case, the man is certainly dead. I looked at him as I came up."

He stopped a moment, and leaned somewhat heavily upon the balustrade with his eyes fixed on the dusky form of the negro. "The meanest thing upon this earth is the man who sides with the oppressor and tramples on his own kind. Still, though I think what I did was warranted, that was not why I shot those men. One doesn't always reason about these matters, as I fancy you understand."

He turned, and looked at Nares who, after a momentary shrinking, steadily met his gaze. The man was wholly honest, and the thing was clear to him. He had struck at last, shrewdly, in a righteous cause, and nobody could have blamed him, but, as had happened in his comrade's case, human bitterness had also nerved the blow.

"Well," he said slowly, "you and I, at least, will probably have to face the results of it."

Again Ormsgill laughed, but a little glint crept into his eyes. "As I pointed out, we are both of us outlawed, with the hand of every white man in this country against us, but we have still a thing to do, and somehow I almost think it will be done."

Then he turned to the man in charge of the Mission. "Nares is coming away with me. There are several reasons that make it advisable. It is very unlikely that anybody will trouble you further about this affair, and if the blame is laid on us it can't greatly matter. The score against one of us is a tolerably long one already – and if my luck holds out it may be longer. There is just another point. Shall I take those two boys below away for you?"

"No," said the other man quietly. "There is, at least, one duty we owe them."

Ormsgill made a little gesture. "The bones of their victims lie thick along each trail to the interior, but, after all, that is probably a thing for which they will not be held responsible. In the meanwhile, there are one or two reasons why I should outmarch Herrero if it can be done. When Nares is ready we will go on again."

Nares was ready in a few minutes, and shaking hands with the two men who went down the veranda stairway with them, they struck into the path that led up the steep hillside. Ormsgill's boys plodded after them, but when they reached the crest of the ridge that overhung the valley Nares sat down, gasping, in the loose white sand, and looked down on the shadowy mission. He could see its pale lights blinking among the leaves.

"It stands for a good deal that I have done with," he said. "It is a strange and almost bewildering thing to feel oneself adrift."

"Still," said Ormsgill, "now and then the bonds of service gall."

Nares made a little gesture. "Often," he said. "Perhaps I was not worthy to wear the uniform and march under orders with the rank and file, but I think the Church Militant has, after all, a task for the free companies which now and then push on ahead of her regular fighting line."

"They march light," said Ormsgill. "That counts for a good deal. It has once or twice occurred to me that the authorized divisions are a little cumbered by their commissariat and baggage wagons."

Nares sighed. "Well," he said softly, "every one must, at least now and then, leave a good deal that he values or has grown attached to behind him." He stopped a moment, and then asked abruptly, "You have heard from the girl at Las Palmas. Desmond would bring you letters?"

"No," said Ormsgill, "not a word. She had no sympathy with my project – that she should have was hardly to be expected. One must endeavor to be reasonable."

"There must have been a time when you expected – everything."

Ormsgill sat silent a minute or two, and while he did so a moving light blinked among the trees below. It stopped at length, and negro voices came up faintly with the thud of hastily plied shovels. It seemed that the terrified converts were coming back and the missionaries had already set them a task. Ormsgill knew what it was, but he looked down at the rifle that glinted in the moonlight across his knee with eyes that were curiously steady. The thing he had done had been forced upon him. Then he turned to his companion, and though he was usually a reticent man he spoke what was in his mind that night.

"There certainly was such a time," he said. "No doubt it has come to others. For five long years I held fast by the memory of the girl I had left in England, and I think there were things it saved me from. Somehow there was always a vague hope that one day I might go back to her – and for that reason I kept above the foulest mire. One goes under easily here in Africa. Then at last the thing became possible."