Long Odds

He broke off, and laughed, a curious little laugh, before he went on again.

"I went back. Whether she was ever what I thought her I do not know – perhaps, I had expected impossibilities – or those five years had made a change. We had not an idea that was the same, and the world she lives in is one that has grown strange to me. They think me slightly crazy – and it is perfectly possible that they are right. Men do lose their mental grip in Africa."

Nares made a little gesture which vaguely suggested comprehension and sympathy before he looked at his comrade with a question in his eyes.

"Yes," said Ormsgill quietly, "I am going on. After all, I owe the girl I thought she was a good deal – and to plain folks there is safety in doing the obvious thing." His voice softened a little. "It may be hard for her – in fact when I went back she probably had a good deal to bear with too. One grows hard and bitter when he has lived with the outcasts as I have done."

Nares understood that he meant what other men called duty by the obvious thing, but the definition, which he felt was characteristic of the man, pleased him. He was one who could, at least, recognize the task that was set before him, and, as it happened, he once more made this clear when he rose and called to the boys who had flung themselves down on the warm white sand.

"Well," he said, "we have now to outmarch Herrero, and there is a good deal to be done."

They went on, Ormsgill limping a little, for his wound still pained him, and vanished into the shadows of the bush, two weary, climate-worn men who had malignant nature and, so far as they knew, the malice of every white man holding authority in that country against them. Still, at least, their course was clear, and in the meanwhile they asked for nothing further.

It also happened one afternoon while they pushed on through shadowy forest and steaming morass that a little and very ancient gunboat crept along the sun-scorched coast. Her white paint, although very far from fresh, gleamed like ivory on the long dazzling swell that changed to a shimmering sliding green in her slowly moving shadow, for she was steaming eight knots, and rolling viciously. Benicia Figuera, who swung in a hammock hung low beneath her awnings, did not, however, seem to mind the erratic motion. She was watching the snowy fringe of crumbling surf creep by, though now and then her eyes sought the far, blue hills that cut the skyline. Her thoughts were with the man who was wandering in the dim forests that crept through the marshes beyond them.

By and by she aroused herself, and looked up with a smile at the man who strolled towards her along the deck. She had met him before at brilliant functions in Portugal where he was a man of importance, and he had come on board in state a few hours earlier from a little sweltering town above a surf-swept beach whose citizens had seriously strained its finances to do him honor. He was dressed simply in plain white duck, a little, courtly gentleman, with the look of one who rules in his olive-tinted face. He sat down in a deck chair near the girl.

"After all, it is a relief to be at sea," he said. "One has quietness there."

Benicia laughed. "Quietness," she said, "is a thing you can hardly be accustomed to Señor. Besides, you are in one way scarcely complimentary to the citizens yonder."

"Ah," said her companion, "it seems they expect something from me and it is to be hoped that when they get it some of them will not be disappointed. I almost think," and he waved a capable hand, "that before I am recalled they will not find insults bad enough for me."

Benicia felt that this was quite possible. Her companion was she knew a strong man as well as an upright one, who had been sent out not long ago with ample powers to grapple with one or two of the questions which then troubled that country. It was also significant that while he was known as a judicious and firm administrator his personal views on the points at issue had not been proclaimed. Benicia had, however, guessed them correctly, and she took it as a compliment that he had given her a vague hint of them. Perhaps, he realized it, for he watched her for a moment with a shrewd twinkle in his dark eyes.

"Señorita," he said, "I almost think you know what I was sent out here to do. One could, however, depend upon Benicia Figuera considering it a confidence."

The girl glanced out beneath the awnings across the sun-scorched littoral towards the blue ridge of the inland plateau before she answered him.

"Yes," she said, "it was to cleanse this stable. I almost think you will find it a strong man's task."

Her companion made a gesture of assent. "It is, at least, one for which I need a reliable broom – and I am fortunate in having one ready."

"Ah," said Benicia, "you of course mean my father. Well, I do not think he will fail you, and though he has not actually told me so, I fancy he has, at least, been making preparations for the sweeping."

The man looked at her and smiled, but when a moving shaft of sunlight struck him as the steamer rolled she saw the deep lines on his face and the gray in his hair. He, as it happened, saw the little gleam of pride in her eyes, and then the light swung back again and they were once more left in the shadow. Yet in that moment a subtle elusive something that was both comprehension and confidence had been established between them.

"Dom Clemente," he said, "is a man I have a great regard for. There is a good deal I owe him, as he may have told you."

"He has told me nothing."

The man spread his hands out. "After all, it was to be expected. He and I were comrades, Señorita, before you were born, and there was a time when I made a blunder which it seemed must spoil my career. There was only one man who could save me and that at the hazard of his own future, but one would not expect such a fact to count with your father. Dom Clemente smiled at the peril and the affair was arranged satisfactorily."

Again he made a little grave gesture. "It happened long ago, and now it seems I am to bring trouble on him again. Still, the years have not changed him. He does not hesitate, but I feel I must ask your forbearance, Señorita. You have, perhaps, seen what sometimes happens when one does one's duty."

Benicia smiled, a little bitterly. "Yes," she said, "I know that the man who is so rash as to attempt it in this country is usually recalled in disgrace. Still, it is not a thing that happens very frequently. Dom Clemente is to be made the scapegoat."

"I think," said the man gravely, "I may be strong enough to save him that. It is possible, as I have told him, that he will be recalled – but what he has done will stand."

He spoke at last as a ruler, with authority, and a trace of sternness in his eyes, but his face changed again.

"Señorita," he said, "if it happens, I think you will not grudge it, or blame me."

The girl saw the opportunity she had been waiting for. "As you have admitted, you owe my father something, and now you have asked something more. Is it not conceivable that you owe me a little, too. I am an influence here – and it would be different in Lisbon if Dom Clemente was sent home again. Besides, sometimes he will listen to me. Now and then a woman has made a change in a man's policy, and, though it is a little more difficult when the man is one's father, it might be done again."

"Ah," said her companion, "you wish to make a bargain."

"It would be too great a condescension, Señor," and Benicia laughed. "I want a promise that is to be unconditional. Some day, perhaps, I shall ask you to do something for me. Then you will do it whatever it is."

The man looked up at her with a little dry smile, but, as he admitted, he owed her father a good deal, and he was not too old for gallantry. Besides that, he had the gift of insight, and a curious confidence in this girl. He felt she would not ask him anything that was not fitting.

"The request," he said, "is a little vague, and perhaps, I am a trifle rash, but I almost think I can promise that what you ask shall be done."

Benicia, reaching out from the hammock, touched him with her fan. "Now," she said, "I know what you think of me. How shall I make my poor acknowledgments? Still, there is another thing. You will discover presently that the brooms of the State are slow. There are two men not among its servants who have commenced the sweeping already. I think Dom Clemente knows this, but you will not mention it to him."

Her companion glanced at her sharply with a sudden keenness in his eyes, but he said nothing, and the girl smiled again.

"When you hear of them I would like you to remember that they are friends of mine," she said. "You will, of course, recognize that nobody I said that of could do anything that was really reprehensible."

"I might admit that it was unlikely," said her companion.

"Then," said Benicia, "when the time comes I would like you to remember it. That is another thing you will promise."

She flashed one swift glance at her companion, who smiled, and then looked round as Dom Clemente and two of the gunboat's officers came towards them along the deck. She roused herself to talk to them, and succeeded brilliantly, now and then to the momentary embarrassment of the officers, who were young, while the man with the gray hair lay in a deck chair a little apart watching her over his cigar. She was clever, and quick-witted, but he knew also that she was like her father, one who at any cost stood by her friends. At the same time he was a little puzzled, for, in the case of a young woman, friend is a term of somewhat vague and comprehensive significance, and she had mentioned that there were two of them. That appeared to complicate the affair, but he had, at least, made a promise, and it was said of him that when he did so he usually kept it, though it was now and then in a somewhat grim fashion. There were also men in the sweltering towns beside the surf-swept beach the gunboat crawled along who would have felt uneasy had they known exactly why he had been sent out to them.

CHAPTER XXV

DOMINGO APPEARS

The carriers had stopped in a deserted village one morning after a long and arduous march from the mission station, when Ormsgill, lying in the hot white sand, looked quietly at Nares, who sat with his back against one of the empty huts.

"If I knew what the dusky image was thinking I should feel considerably more at ease," he said. "Still, I don't, and there's very little use in guessing. After all, we are a long way from grasping the negro's point of view on most subjects yet. They very seldom look at things as we do."

Nares nodded. "Anyway, I almost fancy we could consider what he has told us as correct," he said. "It's something to go upon."

The man he referred to squatted close by them, naked to the waist, though a few yards of cotton cloth hung from his hips. An old Snider rifle lay at his side, and he was big and muscular with a heavy, expressionless face. As Ormsgill had suggested, it certainly afforded very little indication of what he was thinking, and left it a question whether he was capable of intelligent thought at all. They had come upon him in the deserted village on the edge of a great swamp an hour earlier, and he had skillfully evaded their questions as to what he was doing there.

It was an oppressively hot morning, and a heavy, dingy sky hung over the vast morass which they could see through the openings between the scattered huts. It stretched back bare and level, a vast desolation, towards the interior, with a little thin haze floating over it in silvery belts here and there, and streaking the forest that crept up to its edge. The carriers lay half-asleep in the warm sand, blotches of white and blue and ebony, and the man with the rifle appeared vacantly unconcerned. Time is of no value to the negro, and one could have fancied that he was prepared to wait there all day for the white men's next question.

"It's not very much," said Ormsgill reflectively, referring to his comrade's last observation. "Domingo, it seems, is up yonder – but there are one or two other facts, which I think have their significance, in our possession. Herrero is coming up behind us, and, though there are no other Portuguese in the neighborhood, we find this village empty. I should very much like to know why the folks who lived in it have gone away, and I fancy our friend yonder could tell us. Still, it's quite certain that he won't."

"Herrero evidently means to join hands with Domingo," suggested Nares. "It's quite possible, too, that he will do what he can to prevent us buying the six boys from the Headman, who, it's generally believed, does a good deal of business with him. It's a little unfortunate. In another week the thing might have been done."

Ormsgill nodded as one who makes his mind up. "When in doubt go straight on – and, as a matter of fact, we can't afford to stop," he said. "Provisions are going to be a consideration. We'll push on and try what can be done with Domingo and the Headman before Herrero comes up."

He turned to the negro, and Nares amplified his question.

"Yes," said the man, with the faintest suggestion of a grin, "I know where Domingo is, and if you come to our village it is very likely that you will see him. I will take you to the Headman for the pieces of cloth you promise."

He got up leisurely, and Ormsgill, who called to the boys, looked at Nares as they plodded into the forest that skirted the swamp.

"It's quite certain the man was waiting for somebody, and it wasn't Herrero, or he wouldn't have gone away," he said. "That naturally seems to suggest he might have been on the lookout for us. In that case I should very much like to know what was amusing him."

It was not to be made clear until some time later, and in the meanwhile they pushed on for a week through straggling forest with all the haste the boys were capable of, though Ormsgill's face grew thoughtful when they twice passed an empty village. The fact had its significance, for little labor recruiting had been done in that strip of country. Still, its dusky inhabitants had apparently forsaken it, and it became more evident that something unusual was going on. Once only they met a native, or rather he blundered upon their camp when they lay silent in the thin shadow of more open bush on a burning afternoon, and their guide roused himself sharply to attention when a patter of footsteps came out of the stillness. Somebody was evidently approaching in haste, and Ormsgill glanced at Nares in warning when the negro who lay close beside them rose to a crouching posture and drew back the hammer of his old Snider rifle. It was clear that strangers were regarded with suspicion in that country. Then the man drew one foot under him, and sat upon it with the arm that supported the rifle on his knee, and an unpleasantly suggestive look in his heavy face. One could have fancied that he meant to kill, and Ormsgill stretching out a hand laid it on his comrade's shoulder restrainingly.

"Wait," he whispered. "In the meanwhile it's not our business."

Nares waited, but he felt it become more difficult to do so as the footsteps grew plainer. He could hear the little restless movements of the boys, but he had eyes for little beyond the ominous half-naked figure clutching the heavy rifle. It dominated the picture. Tall trunks, trailing creepers, and clustering carriers grew indistinct, but he was vaguely conscious that there was an opening between the leaves some sixty yards in front of him, and his heart throbbed painfully with the effort the restraint he laid upon himself cost him. Then a dusky figure appeared in the opening, and stopped a moment, apparently in astonishment or terror, while Ormsgill was sensible of a sudden straining after recollection. The man was leanly muscular and dressed as scantily as any native of the bush, but there was something in his appearance that was vaguely familiar. In the meanwhile he was also conscious that their guide's arms were stiffening rigidly, and when the man's cheek sank a little lower on the rifle stock he let his hand drop from Nares's shoulder. As it happened, he was close behind the negro, and in another moment would have clutched him.

Just then, however, the stranger sprang forward and a little acrid smoke blew into Ormsgill's eyes. There was a detonation and he contrived to fall with a hand on the ground instead of upon the crouching negro with the rifle. When he looked up again the man who had narrowly escaped from the peril by his quickness was running like a deer, and vanished amidst a crash of displaced undergrowth, while their guide flung back his rifle breech with clumsy haste. When he turned round there was no sign of the stranger and Ormsgill was quietly standing on his feet. Only a few seconds had elapsed since the man had first appeared.

The guide made a little grimace which was expressive of resignation as he turned the rifle over and shook out the cartridge, and in another minute or two they were going on again. When he moved a little away from them Ormsgill looked at Nares.

"It's probably just as well our friend does not know I meant to spoil his aim," he said. "I haven't the least notion why he wished to shoot that man, and very much wish I had, but I can't help fancying that I've seen him before – at one of the Missions most likely. I should be glad if anybody could tell me what he is doing here."

There was nobody who could do it except, perhaps, their guide, but Ormsgill surmised that he was not likely to supply him with any information. He was not to know until some time later that the man in question had once served Herrero, who had beaten him too frequently and severely, and that as a result of this he met Pacheco the Government messenger in a deserted village after another week's arduous journey. In the meanwhile he pushed on, limping a little, through marsh and forest until their guide led them into a large native village where he expected to find the last of Lamartine's boys. This one, at least, was not deserted. In fact, it appeared unusually crowded and, as Ormsgill was quick to notice, most of its inhabitants were armed. He had, however, little opportunity of noticing anything else, for he was led straight into the presence of its ruler, who sat on a low stool under a thatched roof raised on a few rickety pillars in the middle of the village. He was dressed in a white man's duck jacket, worn open, and a shirt; and every person of consequence in the place had gathered about him. The guide presented the newcomers tersely, and it seemed to Ormsgill that the manner in which he did it was significant.

"They are here," he said. "I have done as I was bidden."

The Headman spent some time examining the collection of the sundries they offered him and made a few indifferent attempts to restrain the rapacity of his retainers, who desired something, too. Then he asked Ormsgill his business, and nodded when the latter explained it briefly.

"The six boys are certainly here," he said. "Still, I do not know just now if I can sell you them. That will depend – " Nares understood from the next few words that he desired to be a little ambiguous on this point. "You have, it seems, some business with Domingo, too?"

Nares said it concerned the boys in question, but as the labor purveyor had no claim upon them the matter could be arranged with the Headman, who grinned very much as the guide had done, while a curious little smile crept into the faces of some of the rest.

"Then," he said, "I think he will be here in a day or two. Some of my people have gone for him, but I am not sure that he will have much to tell us when he comes. In the meanwhile you will stay with us a few days, and when I am ready to talk about the boys again I will send for you."

He made a sign that the interview was over, and several of his followers who were armed escorted the white men and their boys to the hut set apart for them. They left them there with a plainly worded hint that it would be wise of them not to come out of it, and when they went away Ormsgill looked at Nares.

"I suppose you're not sure what that Headman really meant," he said. "A man naturally has you at a disadvantage when he doesn't wish to make himself very clear and talks in a tongue you don't quite understand. I wish I knew exactly why he chuckled."

Nares looked thoughtful. "He seemed to know we meant to visit him."

"It's evident. How I don't quite understand. We traveled fast. Still, he did know. In the meanwhile we can only wait."

They waited, somewhat anxiously, for several days, knowing that Herrero, whose presence promised to complicate affairs, was drawing nearer all the while. There was, however, no other course open to them, for when they attempted to leave the hut a big man armed with a matchet who kept watch outside informed them it was the Headman's pleasure that they should stay there until he was at liberty to talk to them.

At last one morning word was brought them, and Ormsgill looked about him in astonishment when they walked into the wide space in the midst of the straggling village. All round it stood long rows of dusky men, most of whom were armed, but only a small and apparently select company sat under the thatched roof in the shadow of which the Headman had previously received them.

"There is something very unusual going on. Half these men seem to be strangers, and they have Sniders," he said. "I expect Domingo could tell how they got them, but I don't seem to see him." Then he touched his comrade's shoulder. "I fancy we can expect something dramatic. There's a man yonder we have met before."

Nares felt that the scene was already sufficiently impressive. The strip of empty sand in front of him flung up a dazzling glare. The sky the palm tufts cut against was of a harsh blue that one could scarcely look upon, and the village was flooded with an almost intolerable brilliancy which flashed upon glittering matchets and Snider barrels. It also smote the massed white draperies and flickered with an oily gleam on ebony limbs and the sea of dusky faces turned expectantly towards the group beneath the thatch. Most of the men there sat on the ground, but there were two seated figures, the village Headman, and the Suzerain lord of his country, the old man they had met already, on a slightly higher stool. He, at least, was dressed in dignified fashion in a long robe of spotless cotton, and a few men with tall spears stood in state behind him. His face was impassively grim, and Nares's heart beat a trifle faster as his eyes rested on him, but at the same time he was sensible of an expectancy so tense that it drove out personal anxiety. He almost felt that he was watching for the opening of the drama from a place of safety.

In the meanwhile he moved towards the thatch with his comrade until they stopped a few yards' distance from the Suzerain, who leaned forward a little and looked at Ormsgill steadily. He was of commanding presence, but there was something in his attitude which suggested that he regarded this stranger as an equal, though he was lord of that country, and the other stood before him, a spare, lonely figure in white duck, with nothing in his hands.

"The Headman has told me your business, and it seems it is very much the same as when I last talked to you," he said. "You are, I believe, not a friend of those other white men who have persecuted me?"

Ormsgill turned to Nares. "You can tell him that we are both proscribed," he said. "Make it quite clear. I don't think there's any reason to be anxious about his handing us over to the folks at San Roque."

Nares explained, and the old man made a little gesture. "Then," he said, "you shall have the six boys, and it is not my will that you offer the Headman anything for them. Domingo stole them – and we have satisfied our claim on him. Still, I do not know yet whether you will be permitted to go away with them. In the meanwhile there is another matter."

Nares made out the gist of it, and as he hastily explained the old man raised his hand. "You have business with Domingo, and there are two other white men who have come here to meet him. Let them come forward."

Somebody passed on the order, and there was a murmur of voices and a stirring of the crowd as a little group of men strode out of it. In front walked the Boer Gavin, a tall, lean figure in travel-stained duck with a heavy rifle cradled in his arm, and his manner was unconcerned. Behind him came Herrero, little, and yellow-faced, looking about him furtively, while a line of dusky men half of whom were armed plodded after them, obviously uneasy. The Suzerain sat impassively still, and looked at them in a curious fashion when they stopped not far from him.