Chapter Twenty Eight.How I had a Visitor in the Night.The sufferings I had gone through and the excitement must have made me in a feverish state, so that, though I heard the faint noise again and again, I began to look upon it as dreaming, and nothing which need trouble me. Even the sight of Jimmy bound to the tree, and now hanging forward with his head sidewise, did not seem to disturb me. It, too, appeared part of a dream, and my eyes kept closing, and a peculiar hot sensation running over my face.Then this passed off and my brain grew clear, and it was not a dream, but real, while the thought now began to torment me, that as the savages were conferring together it must be about how they should put poor Jimmy to death.There was the faint noise again, and I glanced at the savage who was my guard, but he had not heard it apparently, for he was chipping and carving away at the handle of his waddy, only looking up from time to time at his fellows with their prisoner.I wanted to turn myself round and look in the direction whence the sound came, for I felt now that it was no fancy, but that Gyp had been really with me, and that this was he forcing his way to my side again.I could not turn, though, without giving myself great pain, for now my wrists and ankles were fearfully swollen and tender, so I lay still, waiting and wondering why the dog was so long.Then the rustling ceased altogether, and I was beginning to think that the dog had failed to get through and would come round to the front, when there was a faint rustle once more, and I was touched on the shoulder.But it was not by Gyp’s paw; it was a small black hand laid upon me; while, on looking up, there in the dim light was the face of the boy I had encountered on the previous day, or whenever it was that I was struck down.He showed his teeth and pointed to the savage on guard, laying his hand upon my lips as if to stay me from making any sound. Then he looked at my wrists and ankles, touching them gently, after which he laid his hand very gently on the back of my head, and I knew now why it was that I was suffering such pain.For, lightly as he touched me, it was sufficient to send a keen agony through me, and it was all I could do to keep from crying out.The boy saw my pain, and looked at me half wonderingly for a few moments before stooping low and whispering in my ear.I felt so sick from the pain that I paid little heed to his words; but whisper or shout it would have been all the same, I could not have understood a word.So faint and strange a sensation came over me that all seemed dim, and when I once more saw clearly I was alone and the crowd of blacks had disappeared, taking with them Jimmy—if it had not all been a dream due to my feverish state.Just then, however, a couple of blacks came up with the boy straight to the door of the hut, and while the latter stood looking on, the men applied a roughly made plaster of what seemed to be crushed leaves to my head, and then examined my wrists and feet, rubbing them a little and giving me intense pain, which was succeeded by a peculiar, dull warm sensation as they pressed and kneaded the joints.While they were busy the boy went off quickly, and returned with a handful of plum-like fruit, one of which he placed to my dry lips, and I found its acid juice wonderfully refreshing.They all left me soon after, and I saw the boy go and join a tall, peculiar-looking savage, who was marked with tattoo lines or paint in a way different to the rest, and these two talked together for a long while, gesticulating and nodding again and again in my direction, as if I was the subject of their discourse.The effect of the attention to my injuries was to produce a sensation of drowsiness, resulting in a deep sleep, which must have lasted a very long time, for when I awoke it was in the dark, and I was not startled now on hearing the snuffling noise and feeling myself touched by Gyp, who, after silently showing his pleasure, lay down with his head upon my chest once more, and seemed to go to sleep.I made an effort to raise my hand to stroke him, but the pain was too great, and soon after it was I who went to sleep, not Gyp, and when I awoke it was daybreak and the dog was gone.I was better that morning, and could take more interest in all that went on. I saw the tall, peculiar-looking savage go by the hut door at a distance, and I saw the boy go up to him and pass out of sight.Soon after a couple of blacks brought me some food and water, of which I partook eagerly.Later on the boy came with the same two men as on the previous day, and my head was once more dressed and my limbs chafed.Then I was left alone, and I lay watching once more the savages coming and going in a slow deliberate way. I noticed that there were a good many women and children, but if ever they attempted to come in the direction of the hut where I lay they were angrily driven back.Some of the women appeared to be occupied in domestic work, preparing some kind of bread, others busily stripped the feathers from some large birds brought in by men who seemed to have been hunting.I noticed all this feeling calm and restful now, and I was lying wondering whether Jack Penny and the doctor would find out where I was, when I heard a scuffling noise, which seemed to come from a hut where there was a crowd of the people standing.Then there was a repetition of the scene I had previously witnessed, Jimmy being brought out, kicking, struggling, and full of fight.The blacks seemed to want to drag him to the tree where I had seen him tied, but to this Jimmy objected strongly. The way in which he butted at his captors, and kicked out like a grasshopper, would have been most laughable had I not been anxious, for I felt sure that it would result in his hurting some one, and being rewarded with a blow on the head or a spear thrust.I grew so excited at last as the struggle went on that I waited till there was a moment’s pause when Jimmy and his captors were drawing breath for a fresh attack, and shouted with all my might—“Jimmy! be quiet!”My guard, for there was still one at the door, jumped up and stared in, while Jimmy and his captors looked in my direction.Jimmy was the first to break silence by shouting loudly: “Mass Joe! Mass Joe!”“Here!” I shouted back; but I repented the next moment, for Jimmy uttered a yell and made a bound to run towards where he had heard the sound.The result was that one savage threw himself down before the prisoner, who fell headlong, and before he could recover, half a dozen of the blacks were sitting upon him.My heart seemed to stand still, and I felt that poor Jimmy’s end had come, but to my delight I could see that our captors were laughing at the poor fellow’s mad efforts to escape, and I shouted to him once again:“Be quiet! Lie still!”There was no answer, for one of the men was sitting on Jimmy’s head; but he ceased struggling, and after a while the blacks rose, circled about him with their spears, and a couple of them began to push my companion towards the tree to which he had before been bound.“Jimmy no fight?” he shouted to me.“Not now,” I shouted back. “Wait.”“All rightums,” cried Jimmy: “but gettum waddy back, gibs um bang, bang—knockum downum—whack, whack—bangum, bangum!”This was all in a voice loud enough for me to hear, as the poor fellow allowed his captors to bind him to the tree, after which he hung his head and pretended or really did go to sleep.Towards evening I saw the blacks take Jimmy some food, and some was brought to me; and as I sat up and ate and drank I saw the strangely-marked savage and the boy come into the centre of the space by the huts, and lie down near Jimmy, who behaved a good deal after the fashion of some captured beast, for he raised his head now and then, utterly ignoring those who were around, and staring straight before him. But in his case it was not right away toward the forest, but in the direction of the hut where I was confined, and even at the distance where I lay I could read the eagerness in the black’s countenance as he waited to hear me speak.It was getting fast towards sundown, and I was wondering how long they would leave Jimmy tied up to the tree, and fighting hard to get rid of an idea that kept coming to me, namely, that the savages were feeding us and keeping us for an object that it made me shudder to think about, when I noted a little excitement among the people. There was some loud talking, and directly after about a dozen came to my prison and signed to me to get up.I rose to my knees and then tried to stand, but my ankles were still so painful that I winced. By a stern effort, though, I stood up, and a sturdy black on either side took my arms and hurried me to a tree close by the one where Jimmy was tied.As we crossed the opening I saw the boy and the tall painted savage standing by the door of a hut on one side, the latter holding a long spear tasselled with feathers, and I supposed him to be the chief, or perhaps only the doctor or conjuror of the village.Jimmy’s delight knew no bounds. He shouted and sang and laughed, and then howled, with the tears running down his cheeks.“Hi, yup! Jimmy glad as big dingo dog for mutton bones!” he cried. “How quite well, Mass Joe? Jimmy so glad be with you. Seems all over again, Mass Joe, and Jimmy knock all black fellow up and down—make um run, run. Whatum, Mass Joe—legs?”“Only with being tied up so tightly, Jimmy. They’re getting better. My head is the worst.”“Head um worse, Mass Joe! Show Jimmy black debble hurt um head. Jimmy whack um, whack um too much can’t say kangaroo.”“No, no! wait a bit, Jimmy,” I said, as the blacks bound me to the tree. “We must watch for our time.”“Watch?” said Jimmy; “watch? Doctor got um watch clock. Tick, tick, tick!”“Where is the doctor?” I said.“Jimmy don’t know little bitums. Doctor go one way. Mass Jack-Jack Penny-Penny, one way find Mass Joe. Jimmy-Jimmy, go one way find Mass Joe. Jimmy-Jimmy find um. Hooray! Nebber shall be slabe!”“I hope not, Jimmy,” I said, smiling. “So the doctor and Jack Penny and you all went to find me, and you were seized by the blacks?”“Dats um—all lot take um way,” cried Jimmy. “Only Jimmy find Mass Joe. Come along a black fellow. All jump atop Jimmy. Jimmy fight um, kick um—play big goose berry strong black fellow. Too much big coward big. Topper, topper, Jimmy head um. Go sleep um. Bring um here.”“Too many of them, and they hit you on the head and stunned you?”“Hiss! ’tunned Jimmy. Hiss! ’tunned Jimmy. Send um all asleep. Topper head.”“Never mind the topper they gave you, Jimmy. We’ll escape and find our friends.”“Don’t know um,” said Jimmy dolefully. “Bad good black fellow got no muttons—no grub—no wallaby. Eat Mass Joe—eat Jimmy.”“Do you think they are cannibals, Jimmy?” I said excitedly.Jimmy opened his mouth and his eyes very wide and stared at me.“I say, do you think they are cannibals? How stupid! Do you think they eat man?”“Yes; ’tupid, ’tupid. Eat man, lot o’ man. Bad, bad. Make um sick, sick.”I turned cold, for here was corroboration of my fear. This was why they were treating us well instead of killing us at once; and I was turning a shuddering look at the circle of black faces around me when Jimmy exclaimed:“Sha’n’t ums eat Jimmy. No, no. Jimmy eat a whole lot fust. No eat Mass Joe. Jimmy killum killum all lot.”I stood there tightly bound, talking from time to time to the black, happier in mind at having a companion in my imprisonment, and trying to make him understand that our best policy was to wait our time; and then when our captors were more off their guard we could perhaps escape.“No good ’t all,” said Jimmy, shaking his head. “Go eat um, Mass Joe, poor Jimmy. Make up fat um—fat um like big sheep. No run at all, catch fas’.”“Not so bad as that, Jimmy,” I said, laughing in spite of my position at the idea of being made so fat that we could neither of us run.Just then there was a movement among our captors, and having apparently satisfied themselves with a long inspection of their prisoners they were evidently about to take us back to our prisons.“Jimmy gib all big kick?” said the black.“No, no,” I cried, “go quietly.”“Jimmy come ’long Mass Joe?” he said next.“If they will let you,” I replied; “but if they will not, go back to your own place quietly.”“Mass Joe no kind poor Jimmy,” he whimpered. “Want kick um. Mass Joe say no.”“Wait till I tell you, Jimmy,” I replied. “Now go quietly.”He made an attempt to accompany me, but the blacks seized him sharply and led him one way, me the other; and as the sun set and the darkness began to come on, I lay in my hut watching the boy and the tall painted chief talking earnestly together, for I could not see Jimmy’s prison from inside my own.I felt lighter of heart and more ready to take a hopeful view of my position now that my sufferings from my injuries were less, and that I had a companion upon whom I could depend. But all the same I could not help feeling that my position was a very precarious one. But when I was cool and calm I was ready to laugh at the idea about cannibalism, and to think it was the result of imagination.“No,” I said to myself as I lay there, “I don’t think they will kill us, and I am certain they will not eat us. We shall be made slaves and kept to work for them—if they can keep us!”As I lay there listening to the different sounds made in the village dropping off one by one in the darkness, I grew more elate. I was in less pain, and I kept recalling the many instances Jimmy had shown me of his power to be what he called “cunning-artful.” With his help I felt sure that sooner or later we should be able to escape.Drowsiness began to creep over me now, and at last, after listening to the hard breathing of the spear-armed savage whose duty it was to watch me, I began to wonder whether Gyp would come that night.“I hope he will,” I said to myself. “I’ll keep awake till he does.”The consequence of making this determination was that in a very few minutes after I was fast asleep.Just as before I was wakened some time in the night by feeling something touch me, and raising my arm for the first time made the faithful beast utter low whines of joy as I softly patted his head and pulled his ears, letting my hand slip lower to stroke his neck, when my fingers came in contact with the dog’s collar, and almost at the same moment with a stiff scrap of paper.For a moment my heart stood still. Then, sitting up, I caught the dog to me, holding his collar with both hands, touching the paper all the while, but afraid to do more lest the act should result in disappointment.At last I moved one hand cautiously and felt the paper, trembling the while, till a joyous throb rose to my lips, and I rapidly untied a piece of string which tightly bound what was evidently a note to the dog’s collar.Gyp whined in a low tone, and as I loosened him, grasping the note in my hand, I knew that he gave a bit of a skip, but he came back and nestled close to me directly.I needed no thought to know that the note was from the doctor, who must be near. Perhaps, too, Gyp had been night after night with that same note, and I had been too helpless to raise a hand and touch his neck where it had been tied.The doctor was close by, then. There was help, and I would once more be free to get back safe to my dear mother.I stopped there and said half aloud:“Not yet—safe to try once more to find him.”What was I to do?I could not read the note. I opened it and moved my fingers over it as a blind person would, but could not feel a letter, as I might have known.What was I to do?Gyp would be going back. The letter would be gone, while the doctor might not know but what it had been lost.What should I do?There was only one thing, and that was to tie my handkerchief, my torn and frayed silk handkerchief, tightly to the dog’s collar.“He will know that I am here, and alive,” I said to myself. “I wish I could send him word that Jimmy is here as well.”I tried hard to think of some plan, but for a long time not one would come.“I have it!” I said at last; and rapidly taking off the handkerchief I tied two knots fast in one corner.“Perhaps he will understand that means two of us,” I said; and I was about to fasten it to the dog’s collar, when there was a noise outside as of some one moving, and Gyp dashed away from me and was gone.“Without my message,” I said to myself in tones of bitter disappointment, as all became silent again.To my great joy, though, I heard a faint panting once more, and Gyp touched my hand with his wet nose.“I’ll be safe this time,” I remarked, as I rapidly secured and tied the knotted handkerchief, ending by fondling and caressing the dog, I was so overjoyed.“Go on, dear old Gyp,” I cried softly; “and come back to-morrow night for an answer. There, good-bye. Hush! don’t bark. Good-bye!”I patted him, and he ran his nose into my breast, whining softly. Then after feeling the handkerchief once more, to be sure it was safe, I loosened the dog and he bounded from me. I heard a rustling in the corner, and all was silent, while I lay there holding the note tightly in my pocket and longing for the day to come that I might read all that my friends had to say.
The sufferings I had gone through and the excitement must have made me in a feverish state, so that, though I heard the faint noise again and again, I began to look upon it as dreaming, and nothing which need trouble me. Even the sight of Jimmy bound to the tree, and now hanging forward with his head sidewise, did not seem to disturb me. It, too, appeared part of a dream, and my eyes kept closing, and a peculiar hot sensation running over my face.
Then this passed off and my brain grew clear, and it was not a dream, but real, while the thought now began to torment me, that as the savages were conferring together it must be about how they should put poor Jimmy to death.
There was the faint noise again, and I glanced at the savage who was my guard, but he had not heard it apparently, for he was chipping and carving away at the handle of his waddy, only looking up from time to time at his fellows with their prisoner.
I wanted to turn myself round and look in the direction whence the sound came, for I felt now that it was no fancy, but that Gyp had been really with me, and that this was he forcing his way to my side again.
I could not turn, though, without giving myself great pain, for now my wrists and ankles were fearfully swollen and tender, so I lay still, waiting and wondering why the dog was so long.
Then the rustling ceased altogether, and I was beginning to think that the dog had failed to get through and would come round to the front, when there was a faint rustle once more, and I was touched on the shoulder.
But it was not by Gyp’s paw; it was a small black hand laid upon me; while, on looking up, there in the dim light was the face of the boy I had encountered on the previous day, or whenever it was that I was struck down.
He showed his teeth and pointed to the savage on guard, laying his hand upon my lips as if to stay me from making any sound. Then he looked at my wrists and ankles, touching them gently, after which he laid his hand very gently on the back of my head, and I knew now why it was that I was suffering such pain.
For, lightly as he touched me, it was sufficient to send a keen agony through me, and it was all I could do to keep from crying out.
The boy saw my pain, and looked at me half wonderingly for a few moments before stooping low and whispering in my ear.
I felt so sick from the pain that I paid little heed to his words; but whisper or shout it would have been all the same, I could not have understood a word.
So faint and strange a sensation came over me that all seemed dim, and when I once more saw clearly I was alone and the crowd of blacks had disappeared, taking with them Jimmy—if it had not all been a dream due to my feverish state.
Just then, however, a couple of blacks came up with the boy straight to the door of the hut, and while the latter stood looking on, the men applied a roughly made plaster of what seemed to be crushed leaves to my head, and then examined my wrists and feet, rubbing them a little and giving me intense pain, which was succeeded by a peculiar, dull warm sensation as they pressed and kneaded the joints.
While they were busy the boy went off quickly, and returned with a handful of plum-like fruit, one of which he placed to my dry lips, and I found its acid juice wonderfully refreshing.
They all left me soon after, and I saw the boy go and join a tall, peculiar-looking savage, who was marked with tattoo lines or paint in a way different to the rest, and these two talked together for a long while, gesticulating and nodding again and again in my direction, as if I was the subject of their discourse.
The effect of the attention to my injuries was to produce a sensation of drowsiness, resulting in a deep sleep, which must have lasted a very long time, for when I awoke it was in the dark, and I was not startled now on hearing the snuffling noise and feeling myself touched by Gyp, who, after silently showing his pleasure, lay down with his head upon my chest once more, and seemed to go to sleep.
I made an effort to raise my hand to stroke him, but the pain was too great, and soon after it was I who went to sleep, not Gyp, and when I awoke it was daybreak and the dog was gone.
I was better that morning, and could take more interest in all that went on. I saw the tall, peculiar-looking savage go by the hut door at a distance, and I saw the boy go up to him and pass out of sight.
Soon after a couple of blacks brought me some food and water, of which I partook eagerly.
Later on the boy came with the same two men as on the previous day, and my head was once more dressed and my limbs chafed.
Then I was left alone, and I lay watching once more the savages coming and going in a slow deliberate way. I noticed that there were a good many women and children, but if ever they attempted to come in the direction of the hut where I lay they were angrily driven back.
Some of the women appeared to be occupied in domestic work, preparing some kind of bread, others busily stripped the feathers from some large birds brought in by men who seemed to have been hunting.
I noticed all this feeling calm and restful now, and I was lying wondering whether Jack Penny and the doctor would find out where I was, when I heard a scuffling noise, which seemed to come from a hut where there was a crowd of the people standing.
Then there was a repetition of the scene I had previously witnessed, Jimmy being brought out, kicking, struggling, and full of fight.
The blacks seemed to want to drag him to the tree where I had seen him tied, but to this Jimmy objected strongly. The way in which he butted at his captors, and kicked out like a grasshopper, would have been most laughable had I not been anxious, for I felt sure that it would result in his hurting some one, and being rewarded with a blow on the head or a spear thrust.
I grew so excited at last as the struggle went on that I waited till there was a moment’s pause when Jimmy and his captors were drawing breath for a fresh attack, and shouted with all my might—
“Jimmy! be quiet!”
My guard, for there was still one at the door, jumped up and stared in, while Jimmy and his captors looked in my direction.
Jimmy was the first to break silence by shouting loudly: “Mass Joe! Mass Joe!”
“Here!” I shouted back; but I repented the next moment, for Jimmy uttered a yell and made a bound to run towards where he had heard the sound.
The result was that one savage threw himself down before the prisoner, who fell headlong, and before he could recover, half a dozen of the blacks were sitting upon him.
My heart seemed to stand still, and I felt that poor Jimmy’s end had come, but to my delight I could see that our captors were laughing at the poor fellow’s mad efforts to escape, and I shouted to him once again:
“Be quiet! Lie still!”
There was no answer, for one of the men was sitting on Jimmy’s head; but he ceased struggling, and after a while the blacks rose, circled about him with their spears, and a couple of them began to push my companion towards the tree to which he had before been bound.
“Jimmy no fight?” he shouted to me.
“Not now,” I shouted back. “Wait.”
“All rightums,” cried Jimmy: “but gettum waddy back, gibs um bang, bang—knockum downum—whack, whack—bangum, bangum!”
This was all in a voice loud enough for me to hear, as the poor fellow allowed his captors to bind him to the tree, after which he hung his head and pretended or really did go to sleep.
Towards evening I saw the blacks take Jimmy some food, and some was brought to me; and as I sat up and ate and drank I saw the strangely-marked savage and the boy come into the centre of the space by the huts, and lie down near Jimmy, who behaved a good deal after the fashion of some captured beast, for he raised his head now and then, utterly ignoring those who were around, and staring straight before him. But in his case it was not right away toward the forest, but in the direction of the hut where I was confined, and even at the distance where I lay I could read the eagerness in the black’s countenance as he waited to hear me speak.
It was getting fast towards sundown, and I was wondering how long they would leave Jimmy tied up to the tree, and fighting hard to get rid of an idea that kept coming to me, namely, that the savages were feeding us and keeping us for an object that it made me shudder to think about, when I noted a little excitement among the people. There was some loud talking, and directly after about a dozen came to my prison and signed to me to get up.
I rose to my knees and then tried to stand, but my ankles were still so painful that I winced. By a stern effort, though, I stood up, and a sturdy black on either side took my arms and hurried me to a tree close by the one where Jimmy was tied.
As we crossed the opening I saw the boy and the tall painted savage standing by the door of a hut on one side, the latter holding a long spear tasselled with feathers, and I supposed him to be the chief, or perhaps only the doctor or conjuror of the village.
Jimmy’s delight knew no bounds. He shouted and sang and laughed, and then howled, with the tears running down his cheeks.
“Hi, yup! Jimmy glad as big dingo dog for mutton bones!” he cried. “How quite well, Mass Joe? Jimmy so glad be with you. Seems all over again, Mass Joe, and Jimmy knock all black fellow up and down—make um run, run. Whatum, Mass Joe—legs?”
“Only with being tied up so tightly, Jimmy. They’re getting better. My head is the worst.”
“Head um worse, Mass Joe! Show Jimmy black debble hurt um head. Jimmy whack um, whack um too much can’t say kangaroo.”
“No, no! wait a bit, Jimmy,” I said, as the blacks bound me to the tree. “We must watch for our time.”
“Watch?” said Jimmy; “watch? Doctor got um watch clock. Tick, tick, tick!”
“Where is the doctor?” I said.
“Jimmy don’t know little bitums. Doctor go one way. Mass Jack-Jack Penny-Penny, one way find Mass Joe. Jimmy-Jimmy, go one way find Mass Joe. Jimmy-Jimmy find um. Hooray! Nebber shall be slabe!”
“I hope not, Jimmy,” I said, smiling. “So the doctor and Jack Penny and you all went to find me, and you were seized by the blacks?”
“Dats um—all lot take um way,” cried Jimmy. “Only Jimmy find Mass Joe. Come along a black fellow. All jump atop Jimmy. Jimmy fight um, kick um—play big goose berry strong black fellow. Too much big coward big. Topper, topper, Jimmy head um. Go sleep um. Bring um here.”
“Too many of them, and they hit you on the head and stunned you?”
“Hiss! ’tunned Jimmy. Hiss! ’tunned Jimmy. Send um all asleep. Topper head.”
“Never mind the topper they gave you, Jimmy. We’ll escape and find our friends.”
“Don’t know um,” said Jimmy dolefully. “Bad good black fellow got no muttons—no grub—no wallaby. Eat Mass Joe—eat Jimmy.”
“Do you think they are cannibals, Jimmy?” I said excitedly.
Jimmy opened his mouth and his eyes very wide and stared at me.
“I say, do you think they are cannibals? How stupid! Do you think they eat man?”
“Yes; ’tupid, ’tupid. Eat man, lot o’ man. Bad, bad. Make um sick, sick.”
I turned cold, for here was corroboration of my fear. This was why they were treating us well instead of killing us at once; and I was turning a shuddering look at the circle of black faces around me when Jimmy exclaimed:
“Sha’n’t ums eat Jimmy. No, no. Jimmy eat a whole lot fust. No eat Mass Joe. Jimmy killum killum all lot.”
I stood there tightly bound, talking from time to time to the black, happier in mind at having a companion in my imprisonment, and trying to make him understand that our best policy was to wait our time; and then when our captors were more off their guard we could perhaps escape.
“No good ’t all,” said Jimmy, shaking his head. “Go eat um, Mass Joe, poor Jimmy. Make up fat um—fat um like big sheep. No run at all, catch fas’.”
“Not so bad as that, Jimmy,” I said, laughing in spite of my position at the idea of being made so fat that we could neither of us run.
Just then there was a movement among our captors, and having apparently satisfied themselves with a long inspection of their prisoners they were evidently about to take us back to our prisons.
“Jimmy gib all big kick?” said the black.
“No, no,” I cried, “go quietly.”
“Jimmy come ’long Mass Joe?” he said next.
“If they will let you,” I replied; “but if they will not, go back to your own place quietly.”
“Mass Joe no kind poor Jimmy,” he whimpered. “Want kick um. Mass Joe say no.”
“Wait till I tell you, Jimmy,” I replied. “Now go quietly.”
He made an attempt to accompany me, but the blacks seized him sharply and led him one way, me the other; and as the sun set and the darkness began to come on, I lay in my hut watching the boy and the tall painted chief talking earnestly together, for I could not see Jimmy’s prison from inside my own.
I felt lighter of heart and more ready to take a hopeful view of my position now that my sufferings from my injuries were less, and that I had a companion upon whom I could depend. But all the same I could not help feeling that my position was a very precarious one. But when I was cool and calm I was ready to laugh at the idea about cannibalism, and to think it was the result of imagination.
“No,” I said to myself as I lay there, “I don’t think they will kill us, and I am certain they will not eat us. We shall be made slaves and kept to work for them—if they can keep us!”
As I lay there listening to the different sounds made in the village dropping off one by one in the darkness, I grew more elate. I was in less pain, and I kept recalling the many instances Jimmy had shown me of his power to be what he called “cunning-artful.” With his help I felt sure that sooner or later we should be able to escape.
Drowsiness began to creep over me now, and at last, after listening to the hard breathing of the spear-armed savage whose duty it was to watch me, I began to wonder whether Gyp would come that night.
“I hope he will,” I said to myself. “I’ll keep awake till he does.”
The consequence of making this determination was that in a very few minutes after I was fast asleep.
Just as before I was wakened some time in the night by feeling something touch me, and raising my arm for the first time made the faithful beast utter low whines of joy as I softly patted his head and pulled his ears, letting my hand slip lower to stroke his neck, when my fingers came in contact with the dog’s collar, and almost at the same moment with a stiff scrap of paper.
For a moment my heart stood still. Then, sitting up, I caught the dog to me, holding his collar with both hands, touching the paper all the while, but afraid to do more lest the act should result in disappointment.
At last I moved one hand cautiously and felt the paper, trembling the while, till a joyous throb rose to my lips, and I rapidly untied a piece of string which tightly bound what was evidently a note to the dog’s collar.
Gyp whined in a low tone, and as I loosened him, grasping the note in my hand, I knew that he gave a bit of a skip, but he came back and nestled close to me directly.
I needed no thought to know that the note was from the doctor, who must be near. Perhaps, too, Gyp had been night after night with that same note, and I had been too helpless to raise a hand and touch his neck where it had been tied.
The doctor was close by, then. There was help, and I would once more be free to get back safe to my dear mother.
I stopped there and said half aloud:
“Not yet—safe to try once more to find him.”
What was I to do?
I could not read the note. I opened it and moved my fingers over it as a blind person would, but could not feel a letter, as I might have known.
What was I to do?
Gyp would be going back. The letter would be gone, while the doctor might not know but what it had been lost.
What should I do?
There was only one thing, and that was to tie my handkerchief, my torn and frayed silk handkerchief, tightly to the dog’s collar.
“He will know that I am here, and alive,” I said to myself. “I wish I could send him word that Jimmy is here as well.”
I tried hard to think of some plan, but for a long time not one would come.
“I have it!” I said at last; and rapidly taking off the handkerchief I tied two knots fast in one corner.
“Perhaps he will understand that means two of us,” I said; and I was about to fasten it to the dog’s collar, when there was a noise outside as of some one moving, and Gyp dashed away from me and was gone.
“Without my message,” I said to myself in tones of bitter disappointment, as all became silent again.
To my great joy, though, I heard a faint panting once more, and Gyp touched my hand with his wet nose.
“I’ll be safe this time,” I remarked, as I rapidly secured and tied the knotted handkerchief, ending by fondling and caressing the dog, I was so overjoyed.
“Go on, dear old Gyp,” I cried softly; “and come back to-morrow night for an answer. There, good-bye. Hush! don’t bark. Good-bye!”
I patted him, and he ran his nose into my breast, whining softly. Then after feeling the handkerchief once more, to be sure it was safe, I loosened the dog and he bounded from me. I heard a rustling in the corner, and all was silent, while I lay there holding the note tightly in my pocket and longing for the day to come that I might read all that my friends had to say.
Chapter Twenty Nine.How I heard English spoken here.I suppose I must have dropped asleep some time, but it seemed to me that I was lying awake watching for the daylight, which seemed as if it would never come. Then I dropped soundly asleep and slept some hours, for when I opened my eyes with a start there was one of the blacks leaning over me with some cords in his hands, with which he seemed to be about to bind me; but a shout outside took his attention, and he went out, leaving me trembling with anxiety and crushing the note in my hand.It was broad daylight with brilliant sunshine without, but my prison was windowless, and where I lay was in the shadow, save where here and there a pencil of light shone through the palm-leaf thatch and made a glowing spot upon the floor.Every moment I expected to see my guard back again, or I might be interrupted, I knew, by the coming of some one with food. I dared not then attempt to read for some time, since it seemed like too great a risk of losing words that were inexpressibly precious.At last all seemed so still but the buzz and hum of distant voices that I determined to venture, and undoing my hot hand I unfolded the little scrap of paper, upon which, written closely but clearly, were the following words—“As we are so near a village of the blacks, and you have not returned, I have concluded that you have been made a prisoner. Gyp found your scent and went off, returning after many hours’ absence; so I write these lines to bid you be of good heart, for we shall try by stratagem to get you away.”Then there was this, evidently written the next day:“Gyp has been again and brought back the above lines which I tied to his collar. If you get them tie something to the dog’s collar to show you are alive and well. Poor Jimmy went in search of you, but has not returned.”“Tie something to the dog’s collar to show you are alive and well!” I said to myself over and over again, as I carefully secreted the scrap of paper—a needless task, as, if it had been seen, no one would have paid any heed to it. “And I have tied something to the dog’s collar and they will come, the doctor and Jack Penny, with the blacks, to-night to try and save me, and I shall escape.”I stopped here, for the words seemed to be wild and foolish. How could they rescue me, and, besides, ought I not to feel glad that I was here among the natives of the island? What better position could I be in for gaining information about my father?I lay thinking like this for long, and every hour it seemed that my injured head and my cut wrists and ankles were healing. The confused feeling had passed away, leaving nothing but stiffness and soreness, while the message I had received gave me what I wanted worst—hope.I did not see Jimmy that day, for he was not brought out, neither was I taken to the tree, but I saw that the savage who brought me food had a double quantity, and to prove that some of it was meant for my fellow-prisoner I soon afterwards heard him shout:“Mass Joe come have ’nana—come have plantain ’nana.”This he repeated till I uttered a low long whistle, one which he had heard me use scores of times, and to which he replied.An hour after he whistled again, but I could not reply, for three or four of the blacks were in the hut with me, evidently for no other purpose than to watch.That night I lay awake trembling and anxious. I wanted to have something ready to send back by the dog when it came at night, but try how I would I could contrive nothing. I had no paper or pencil; no point of any kind to scratch a few words on a piece of bark—no piece of bark if I had had a point.As it happened, though I lay awake the dog did not come, and when the morning came, although I was restless and feverish I was more at rest in my mind, for I thought I saw my way to communicate a word or two with the doctor.I was unbound now, and therefore had no difficulty in moving about the hut, from whose low roof, after a good deal of trying, I at last obtained a piece of palm-leaf that seemed likely to suit my purpose. This done, my need was a point of some kind—a pin, a nail, the tongue of a buckle, a hard sharp piece of wood, and I had neither.But I had hope.Several different blacks had taken their places at the door of my hut, and I was waiting patiently for the one to return who sat there carving his waddy handle. When he came I hoped by some stratagem to get hold of the sharp bit of flint to scratch my palm-leaf.Fortunately towards mid-day this man came, and after a good look at me where I lay he stuck his spear in the earth, squatted down, took out his flint and waddy, and began once more to laboriously cut the zigzag lines that formed the ornamentation.I lay there hungrily watching him hour after hour, vainly trying to think out some plan, and when I was quite in despair the black boy, whom I had not seen for many hours, came sauntering up in an indifferent way to stand talking to my guard for some minutes, and then entered the hut to stand looking down at me.I was puzzled about that boy, for at times I thought him friendly, at others disposed to treat me as an enemy; but my puzzled state was at an end, for as soon as I began to make signs he watched me eagerly and tried to comprehend.I had hard work to make him understand by pointing to the savage outside, and then pretending to hack at my finger as if carving it. Jimmy would have understood in a moment, but it was some time before the boy saw what I meant. Then his face lit up, and he slowly sauntered away, as if in the most careless of moods, poising his spear and throwing it at trees, stooping, leaping, and playing at being a warrior of his tribe, so it seemed to me, till he disappeared among the trees.The sun was sinking low, but he did not return. I saw him pass by with the tall painted warrior, and then go out of sight. My food had been given me, but I had not seen Jimmy, though we had corresponded together by making a few shrill parrot-like whistles. Night would soon be upon me once again, and when Gyp came, if he did come, I should not be ready.I was just thinking like this when there was a slight tap close by me, and turning quickly I saw a sharp-pointed piece of stone upon the beaten earth floor, and as I reached out my hand to pick it up a piece of white wood struck me on the hand, making a sharp metallic sound.I felt that there was danger, and half threw myself over my treasures, looking dreamily out at the entrance and remaining motionless, as my guard entered to stare round suspiciously, eyeing me all over, and then going slowly back.I breathed more freely, and was thinking as I saw him settle down that I might at any time begin to try and carve a word or two, and in this mind I was about to take the piece of wood from beneath me when the savage swung himself round and sprang into the hut in a couple of bounds.He had meant to surprise me if I had been engaged upon any plan of escape, but finding me perfectly motionless he merely laughed and went back.Directly after, another savage came up and took his place, and I eagerly began my task.Very easy it sounds to carve a few letters on a piece of wood, but how hard I found it before I managed to roughly cut the words “All Well,” having selected these because they were composed of straight lines, which mine were not. Still I hoped that the doctor would make them out, and I hid my piece of flint and my wooden note and waited, meaning to keep awake till the dog came.But I had been awake all the previous night, and I fell fast asleep, till Gyp came and roused me by scratching at my chest, when in a dreamy confused way I found and took something from the dog’s collar and tied my note in its place, falling asleep directly after from sheer exhaustion.It was broad daylight when I awoke, and my first thought was of my message, when, thrusting my hand into my breast, a curious sensation of misery came over me as my hand came in contact with a piece of wood, and it seemed that I had been dreaming and the dog had not come.I drew out the flat piece of white wood, but it was not mine. The doctor, probably having no paper, had hit upon the same plan as I.His words were few.“Be on the alert. We shall come some night.”I thrust the wooden label beneath the dust of the floor, scraped some more earth over it, and already saw myself at liberty, and in the joy of my heart I uttered a long parrot-like whistle, but it was not answered.I whistled again, but there was no reply; and though I kept on making signals for quite an hour no response came, and the joyousness began to fade out of my breast.Twice over that morning I saw the tall savage who was so diabolically painted and tattooed go by, and once I thought he looked very hard at my hut; but he soon passed out of my sight, leaving me wondering whether he was the chief, from his being so much alone, and the curious way in which all the people seemed to get out of his path.Once or twice he came near enough for me to see him better, and I noticed that he walked with his eyes fixed upon the ground in a dreamy way, full of dignity, and I felt certain now that he must be the king of these people.The next day came and I saw him again in the midst of quite a crowd, who had borne one of their number into the middle of the inclosure of huts, and this time I saw the tall strange-looking savage go slowly down upon his knees, and soon after rise and motion with his hands, when everyone but the boy fell back. He alone knelt down on one side of what was evidently an injured man.The blacks kept their distance religiously till the painted savage signed to them once more, when they ran forward and four of their number lifted the prostrate figure carefully and carried it into a hut.“I was right,” I said to myself with a feeling of satisfaction. “I was right the first time. It is the doctor, and he ought to have come to my help when I was so bad.”Two days, three days passed, during which I lay and watched the birds that flitted by, saw the people as they came and went, and from time to time uttered a signal whistle; but this had to be stopped, for on the afternoon of the third day a very tall savage entered hurriedly in company with my guard and half a dozen more, and by signs informed me that if I made signals again my life would be taken.It was very easy to understand, for spears were pointed at me and war-clubs tapped me not very lightly upon the head.As soon as I was left alone I sat thinking, and before long came to the conclusion that this was probably the reason why I had not heard any signal from Jimmy, who had perhaps been obstinate, and consequently had been treated with greater severity.I longed for the night to come that I might have some fresh message from the doctor, but somehow I could not keep awake, anxious as I was, and I was sleeping soundly when a touch awoke me with a start.I threw up my hands to catch Gyp by the collar, but to my consternation I touched a hand and arm in the darkness, and there was something so peculiar in the touch, my hand seeming to rest on raised lines of paint, that I turned cold, for I knew that one of the savages was bending over me, and I felt that it must mean that my time had come.I should have called out, but a hand was laid over my lips and an arm pressed my chest, as a voice whispered in good English:“Run, escape! You can’t stay here!”“Who is it?” I whispered back, trembling with excitement. “I know!” I added quickly; “you are the tall savage—the doctor!”“Yes—yes!” he said in a low dreamy tone. “The tall savage! Yes—tall savage!”“But you are an Englishman!” I panted, as a terrible thought, half painful, half filled with hope, flashed through my brain.“Englishman! yes—Englishman! Before I was here—before I was ill! Come, quick! escape for your life! Go!”“And you?”He was silent—so silent that I put out my hands and touched him, to make sure that he had not gone, and I found that he was resting his head upon his hands.“Will you go with me to my friends?” I said, trembling still, for the thought that had come to me was gaining strength.“Friends!” he said softly; “friends! Yes, I had friends before I came—before I came!”He said this in a curious dreamy tone, and I forced the idea back. It was impossible, but at the same time my heart leaped for joy. Here was an Englishman dwelling among the savages—a prisoner, or one who had taken up this life willingly, and if he could dwell among them so could my father, who must be somewhere here.“Tell me,” I began; but he laid his hand upon my lips.“Hist! not a sound,” he said. “The people sleep lightly; come with me.”He took my hand in his and led me out boldly past a black who was lying a short distance from my hut, and then right across the broad opening surrounded by the natives’ dwellings, and then through a grove of trees to a large hut standing by itself.He pressed my hand hard and led me through the wide opening into what seemed to be a blacker darkness, which did not, however, trouble him, for he stepped out boldly, and then I heard a muttering growl which I recognised directly.“Hush, Jimmy!” I whispered, throwing myself upon my knees. “Don’t speak.”“Jimmy not a go to speak um,” he said softly. “Mass Joe come a top.”“Go,” said my companion. “Go quick. I want to help—I—the fever—my head—help.”There was another pause, and on stretching out my hand I found that my guide was pressing his to his forehead once again.“He has lived this savage life so long that he cannot think,” I felt as, taking his hand, I led him to the opening, through which he passed in silence, and with Jimmy walking close behind he led us between a couple more huts, and then for a good hour between tall trees so close together that we threaded our way with difficulty.My companion did not speak, and at last the silence grew so painful that I asked him how long it would be before daybreak.“Hush!” he said. “Listen! They have found out.”He finished in an excited way, repeating hastily some native words before stooping to listen, when, to my dismay, plainly enough in the silence of the night came the angry murmur of voices, and this probably meant pursuit—perhaps capture, and then death.
I suppose I must have dropped asleep some time, but it seemed to me that I was lying awake watching for the daylight, which seemed as if it would never come. Then I dropped soundly asleep and slept some hours, for when I opened my eyes with a start there was one of the blacks leaning over me with some cords in his hands, with which he seemed to be about to bind me; but a shout outside took his attention, and he went out, leaving me trembling with anxiety and crushing the note in my hand.
It was broad daylight with brilliant sunshine without, but my prison was windowless, and where I lay was in the shadow, save where here and there a pencil of light shone through the palm-leaf thatch and made a glowing spot upon the floor.
Every moment I expected to see my guard back again, or I might be interrupted, I knew, by the coming of some one with food. I dared not then attempt to read for some time, since it seemed like too great a risk of losing words that were inexpressibly precious.
At last all seemed so still but the buzz and hum of distant voices that I determined to venture, and undoing my hot hand I unfolded the little scrap of paper, upon which, written closely but clearly, were the following words—
“As we are so near a village of the blacks, and you have not returned, I have concluded that you have been made a prisoner. Gyp found your scent and went off, returning after many hours’ absence; so I write these lines to bid you be of good heart, for we shall try by stratagem to get you away.”
Then there was this, evidently written the next day:
“Gyp has been again and brought back the above lines which I tied to his collar. If you get them tie something to the dog’s collar to show you are alive and well. Poor Jimmy went in search of you, but has not returned.”
“Tie something to the dog’s collar to show you are alive and well!” I said to myself over and over again, as I carefully secreted the scrap of paper—a needless task, as, if it had been seen, no one would have paid any heed to it. “And I have tied something to the dog’s collar and they will come, the doctor and Jack Penny, with the blacks, to-night to try and save me, and I shall escape.”
I stopped here, for the words seemed to be wild and foolish. How could they rescue me, and, besides, ought I not to feel glad that I was here among the natives of the island? What better position could I be in for gaining information about my father?
I lay thinking like this for long, and every hour it seemed that my injured head and my cut wrists and ankles were healing. The confused feeling had passed away, leaving nothing but stiffness and soreness, while the message I had received gave me what I wanted worst—hope.
I did not see Jimmy that day, for he was not brought out, neither was I taken to the tree, but I saw that the savage who brought me food had a double quantity, and to prove that some of it was meant for my fellow-prisoner I soon afterwards heard him shout:
“Mass Joe come have ’nana—come have plantain ’nana.”
This he repeated till I uttered a low long whistle, one which he had heard me use scores of times, and to which he replied.
An hour after he whistled again, but I could not reply, for three or four of the blacks were in the hut with me, evidently for no other purpose than to watch.
That night I lay awake trembling and anxious. I wanted to have something ready to send back by the dog when it came at night, but try how I would I could contrive nothing. I had no paper or pencil; no point of any kind to scratch a few words on a piece of bark—no piece of bark if I had had a point.
As it happened, though I lay awake the dog did not come, and when the morning came, although I was restless and feverish I was more at rest in my mind, for I thought I saw my way to communicate a word or two with the doctor.
I was unbound now, and therefore had no difficulty in moving about the hut, from whose low roof, after a good deal of trying, I at last obtained a piece of palm-leaf that seemed likely to suit my purpose. This done, my need was a point of some kind—a pin, a nail, the tongue of a buckle, a hard sharp piece of wood, and I had neither.
But I had hope.
Several different blacks had taken their places at the door of my hut, and I was waiting patiently for the one to return who sat there carving his waddy handle. When he came I hoped by some stratagem to get hold of the sharp bit of flint to scratch my palm-leaf.
Fortunately towards mid-day this man came, and after a good look at me where I lay he stuck his spear in the earth, squatted down, took out his flint and waddy, and began once more to laboriously cut the zigzag lines that formed the ornamentation.
I lay there hungrily watching him hour after hour, vainly trying to think out some plan, and when I was quite in despair the black boy, whom I had not seen for many hours, came sauntering up in an indifferent way to stand talking to my guard for some minutes, and then entered the hut to stand looking down at me.
I was puzzled about that boy, for at times I thought him friendly, at others disposed to treat me as an enemy; but my puzzled state was at an end, for as soon as I began to make signs he watched me eagerly and tried to comprehend.
I had hard work to make him understand by pointing to the savage outside, and then pretending to hack at my finger as if carving it. Jimmy would have understood in a moment, but it was some time before the boy saw what I meant. Then his face lit up, and he slowly sauntered away, as if in the most careless of moods, poising his spear and throwing it at trees, stooping, leaping, and playing at being a warrior of his tribe, so it seemed to me, till he disappeared among the trees.
The sun was sinking low, but he did not return. I saw him pass by with the tall painted warrior, and then go out of sight. My food had been given me, but I had not seen Jimmy, though we had corresponded together by making a few shrill parrot-like whistles. Night would soon be upon me once again, and when Gyp came, if he did come, I should not be ready.
I was just thinking like this when there was a slight tap close by me, and turning quickly I saw a sharp-pointed piece of stone upon the beaten earth floor, and as I reached out my hand to pick it up a piece of white wood struck me on the hand, making a sharp metallic sound.
I felt that there was danger, and half threw myself over my treasures, looking dreamily out at the entrance and remaining motionless, as my guard entered to stare round suspiciously, eyeing me all over, and then going slowly back.
I breathed more freely, and was thinking as I saw him settle down that I might at any time begin to try and carve a word or two, and in this mind I was about to take the piece of wood from beneath me when the savage swung himself round and sprang into the hut in a couple of bounds.
He had meant to surprise me if I had been engaged upon any plan of escape, but finding me perfectly motionless he merely laughed and went back.
Directly after, another savage came up and took his place, and I eagerly began my task.
Very easy it sounds to carve a few letters on a piece of wood, but how hard I found it before I managed to roughly cut the words “All Well,” having selected these because they were composed of straight lines, which mine were not. Still I hoped that the doctor would make them out, and I hid my piece of flint and my wooden note and waited, meaning to keep awake till the dog came.
But I had been awake all the previous night, and I fell fast asleep, till Gyp came and roused me by scratching at my chest, when in a dreamy confused way I found and took something from the dog’s collar and tied my note in its place, falling asleep directly after from sheer exhaustion.
It was broad daylight when I awoke, and my first thought was of my message, when, thrusting my hand into my breast, a curious sensation of misery came over me as my hand came in contact with a piece of wood, and it seemed that I had been dreaming and the dog had not come.
I drew out the flat piece of white wood, but it was not mine. The doctor, probably having no paper, had hit upon the same plan as I.
His words were few.
“Be on the alert. We shall come some night.”
I thrust the wooden label beneath the dust of the floor, scraped some more earth over it, and already saw myself at liberty, and in the joy of my heart I uttered a long parrot-like whistle, but it was not answered.
I whistled again, but there was no reply; and though I kept on making signals for quite an hour no response came, and the joyousness began to fade out of my breast.
Twice over that morning I saw the tall savage who was so diabolically painted and tattooed go by, and once I thought he looked very hard at my hut; but he soon passed out of my sight, leaving me wondering whether he was the chief, from his being so much alone, and the curious way in which all the people seemed to get out of his path.
Once or twice he came near enough for me to see him better, and I noticed that he walked with his eyes fixed upon the ground in a dreamy way, full of dignity, and I felt certain now that he must be the king of these people.
The next day came and I saw him again in the midst of quite a crowd, who had borne one of their number into the middle of the inclosure of huts, and this time I saw the tall strange-looking savage go slowly down upon his knees, and soon after rise and motion with his hands, when everyone but the boy fell back. He alone knelt down on one side of what was evidently an injured man.
The blacks kept their distance religiously till the painted savage signed to them once more, when they ran forward and four of their number lifted the prostrate figure carefully and carried it into a hut.
“I was right,” I said to myself with a feeling of satisfaction. “I was right the first time. It is the doctor, and he ought to have come to my help when I was so bad.”
Two days, three days passed, during which I lay and watched the birds that flitted by, saw the people as they came and went, and from time to time uttered a signal whistle; but this had to be stopped, for on the afternoon of the third day a very tall savage entered hurriedly in company with my guard and half a dozen more, and by signs informed me that if I made signals again my life would be taken.
It was very easy to understand, for spears were pointed at me and war-clubs tapped me not very lightly upon the head.
As soon as I was left alone I sat thinking, and before long came to the conclusion that this was probably the reason why I had not heard any signal from Jimmy, who had perhaps been obstinate, and consequently had been treated with greater severity.
I longed for the night to come that I might have some fresh message from the doctor, but somehow I could not keep awake, anxious as I was, and I was sleeping soundly when a touch awoke me with a start.
I threw up my hands to catch Gyp by the collar, but to my consternation I touched a hand and arm in the darkness, and there was something so peculiar in the touch, my hand seeming to rest on raised lines of paint, that I turned cold, for I knew that one of the savages was bending over me, and I felt that it must mean that my time had come.
I should have called out, but a hand was laid over my lips and an arm pressed my chest, as a voice whispered in good English:
“Run, escape! You can’t stay here!”
“Who is it?” I whispered back, trembling with excitement. “I know!” I added quickly; “you are the tall savage—the doctor!”
“Yes—yes!” he said in a low dreamy tone. “The tall savage! Yes—tall savage!”
“But you are an Englishman!” I panted, as a terrible thought, half painful, half filled with hope, flashed through my brain.
“Englishman! yes—Englishman! Before I was here—before I was ill! Come, quick! escape for your life! Go!”
“And you?”
He was silent—so silent that I put out my hands and touched him, to make sure that he had not gone, and I found that he was resting his head upon his hands.
“Will you go with me to my friends?” I said, trembling still, for the thought that had come to me was gaining strength.
“Friends!” he said softly; “friends! Yes, I had friends before I came—before I came!”
He said this in a curious dreamy tone, and I forced the idea back. It was impossible, but at the same time my heart leaped for joy. Here was an Englishman dwelling among the savages—a prisoner, or one who had taken up this life willingly, and if he could dwell among them so could my father, who must be somewhere here.
“Tell me,” I began; but he laid his hand upon my lips.
“Hist! not a sound,” he said. “The people sleep lightly; come with me.”
He took my hand in his and led me out boldly past a black who was lying a short distance from my hut, and then right across the broad opening surrounded by the natives’ dwellings, and then through a grove of trees to a large hut standing by itself.
He pressed my hand hard and led me through the wide opening into what seemed to be a blacker darkness, which did not, however, trouble him, for he stepped out boldly, and then I heard a muttering growl which I recognised directly.
“Hush, Jimmy!” I whispered, throwing myself upon my knees. “Don’t speak.”
“Jimmy not a go to speak um,” he said softly. “Mass Joe come a top.”
“Go,” said my companion. “Go quick. I want to help—I—the fever—my head—help.”
There was another pause, and on stretching out my hand I found that my guide was pressing his to his forehead once again.
“He has lived this savage life so long that he cannot think,” I felt as, taking his hand, I led him to the opening, through which he passed in silence, and with Jimmy walking close behind he led us between a couple more huts, and then for a good hour between tall trees so close together that we threaded our way with difficulty.
My companion did not speak, and at last the silence grew so painful that I asked him how long it would be before daybreak.
“Hush!” he said. “Listen! They have found out.”
He finished in an excited way, repeating hastily some native words before stooping to listen, when, to my dismay, plainly enough in the silence of the night came the angry murmur of voices, and this probably meant pursuit—perhaps capture, and then death.
Chapter Thirty.How I talked with my new Friend.As I heard the sound of the pursuit a horrible sensation of dread came over me. I felt that we must be taken, and, in addition, vague ideas of trouble and bloodshed floated through my brain, with memories of the fight in the gorge, and I shuddered at the idea of there being more people slain.The effect was different upon Jimmy, the distant cries seeming to excite him. He stopped every now and then to jump from the ground and strike the nearest tree a tremendous blow with a waddy he had obtained from our guide.The latter checked him, though, laying a hand upon his arm as he said to me, after listening intently:“You don’t want to fight. These people are too strong. You must escape.”“But you will come with us?” I said once more, with the vague fancy coming back that this was he whom I sought, but terribly changed.He said something in reply in the savage tongue, stopped, and then went on.“I forget—I don’t know. I am the doctor—a savage—what did you say?”“Come with us,” I whispered, and he bent his head in the dark; but my words seemed to have no effect upon him, one idea seeming to be all that he could retain, for he hurried me on, grasping my arm tightly, and then loosed it and went on in front.Jimmy took his place, gripping my arm in turn, and, whispering, showed his power of observation by saying:“Much good him. No black fellow. Talk like Mass Joe some time. Jimmy tink um Mass Joe fader got dust in head. Don’t know know.”“Oh no! impossible, Jimmy,” I whispered back with emotion. “It cannot be my father.”“No fader? All um white fellow got mud mud in head. Can’t see, can’t know know. No Mass Joe fader?”“No, I am sure it is not.”“Then um white fellow. No black fellow. Tupid tupid. Don’t know at all. No find wallaby in hole. No find honey. No kedge fis. Tupid white fellow all a same, mud in um head.”“He seems strange in his head,” I said.“Yes. Iss mad mad. No wash um head clean. Can’t tink straight up an down ums like Jimmy.”“But he is saving us,” I said. “Taking us to our friends.”“Jimmy no know. Jimmy tink doctor somewhere right long—big hill. Gib black white fellow topper topper make um tink more.”“No, no,” I whispered, for he had grasped his waddy and was about to clear our guide’s misty brain in this rough-and-ready way. “Be quiet and follow him.”Just then our guide stopped and let me go to his side.“Fever—my head,” he said softly, and as if apologising. “Can’t think.”“But you will come with us?” I said. “My friend the doctor will help you. You shall help us. You must not go back to that degraded life.”“Doctor!” he said, as if he had only caught that word. “Yes, the doctor. Can’t leave the people—can’t leave him.”“Him!” I said; “that boy?”“Hush! come faster.” For there were shouts and cries behind, and he hurried us along for some distance, talking rapidly to me all the while in the savages’ tongue, and apparently under the impression that I understood every word, though it was only now and then that I caught his meaning, and then it was because they were English words.After catching a few of these I became aware, or rather guessed, that he was telling me the story of his captivity among these people, and I tried eagerly to get him to speak English; but he did not seem to heed me, going on rapidly, and apparently bent on getting us away.I caught such words as “fever—prisoner—my head—years—misery—despair—always—savage—doctor”—but only in the midst of a long excited account which he said more to himself. I was at last paying little heed to him when two words stood out clear and distinctly from the darkness of his savage speech, words that sent a spasm through me and made me catch at his arm and try to speak, but only to emit a few gasping utterances as he bent down to me staring as if in wonder.The words were “fellow-prisoner;” and they made me stop short, for I felt that I had really and providentially hit upon the right place after all, and that there could be only one man likely to be a fellow-prisoner, and that—my poor father.It was impossible to flee farther, I felt, and leave him whom I had come to seek behind.Then common sense stepped in and made me know that it was folly to stay, while Jimmy supplemented these thoughts by saying:“Black fellow come along fas. Mass Joe no gun, no powder pop, no chopper, no knife, no fight works ’tall.”“Where is he?” I said excitedly, as I held the arm of our guide.“Blacks—coming after us.”He talked on rapidly in the savage tongue and I uttered a groan of despair.“What um say, Mass Joe?” whispered Jimmy excitedly. “Talk, talk, poll parrot can’t say know what um say. Come along run way fas. Fight nunner time o,” he added. “Black fellow come along.”He caught my arm, and, following our guide, we hurried on through the darkness, which was so dense that if it had not been for the wonderful eyesight of my black companion—a faculty which seemed to have been acquired or shared by our guide—I should have struck full against the trunk of some tree. As it was, I met with a few unpleasant blows on arm or shoulder, though the excitement of our flight was too great for me to heed them then.I was in despair, and torn by conflicting emotions: joy at escaping and at having reached the goal I had set up, misery at having to leave it behind just when I had found the light. It might have been foolish, seeing how much better I could serve him by being free, but I felt ready to hurry back and share my father’s captivity, for I felt assured that it must be he of whom our guide spoke.We were hurrying on all this time entirely under the guidance of the strange being who had set us free, but not without protests from the black, who was growing jealous of our guide and who kept on whispering:“No go no farrer, Mass Joe, Jimmy fine a doctor an Mass Jack Penny. Hi come along Jimmy now.”He was just repeating this in my ear when we were hurrying on faster, for the sounds of our pursuers came clear upon the wind, when our guide stopped short and fell back a few paces as a low angry growl saluted him from the darkness in front and he said something sharply to us in the native tongue.His words evidently meant “Fall back!” but I had recognised that growl.“Gyp!” I cried; and the growling changed to a whining cry of joy, and in an instant the dog was leaping up at my face, playfully biting at my hands, and then darting at Jimmy he began the same welcoming demonstrations upon the black.“Mass Joe, Mass Joe, he go eat up black fellow. Top um away, top um away.”“It’s only his play, Jimmy,” I said.“Him eat piece Jimmy, all up leggum,” cried the black.“Here, Gyp!” I cried, as the dog stopped his whining cry of pleasure, but growled once more. “Here,” I said, “this is a friend. Pat his head, sir, and—, where is he, Jimmy?”“Black white fellow, Mass Joe?”“Yes, yes, where is he?”“Gone ’long uder way. Run back fas fas. Fraid o Gyp, Gyp send um way.”“Stop him! Run after him! He must not go,” I cried.I stopped, for there was a low piping whistle like the cry of a Blue Mountain parrot back at home.“Jack Penny!” I gasped, and I answered the call.“Iss, yes, Mass Jack Penny,” cried Jimmy, and Gyp made a bound from my side into the darkness, leaving us alone.We heard the crash and rustle of the underwood as the dog tore off, and I was about to follow, but I could not stir, feeling that if I waited our guide might return, when, in the midst of my indecision, the whistle was repeated, and this time Jimmy answered.Then there was more rustling, the dog came panting back; and as the rustling continued there came out of the darkness a sound that made my heart leap.It was only my name softly uttered, apparently close at hand, and I made a bound in the direction, but only to fall back half-stunned, for I had struck myself full against a tree.I just remember falling and being caught by some one, and then I felt sick, and the darkness seemed filled with lights.But these soon died out, and I was listening to a familiar voice that came, it appeared, from a long way off; then it came nearer and nearer, and the words seemed to be breathed upon my face.“Only a bit stunned,” it said; and then I gasped out the one word:“Doctor!”“My dear Joe!” came back, and— well, it was in the dark, and we were not ashamed: the doctor hugged me to his heart, as if I had been his brother whom he had found.
As I heard the sound of the pursuit a horrible sensation of dread came over me. I felt that we must be taken, and, in addition, vague ideas of trouble and bloodshed floated through my brain, with memories of the fight in the gorge, and I shuddered at the idea of there being more people slain.
The effect was different upon Jimmy, the distant cries seeming to excite him. He stopped every now and then to jump from the ground and strike the nearest tree a tremendous blow with a waddy he had obtained from our guide.
The latter checked him, though, laying a hand upon his arm as he said to me, after listening intently:
“You don’t want to fight. These people are too strong. You must escape.”
“But you will come with us?” I said once more, with the vague fancy coming back that this was he whom I sought, but terribly changed.
He said something in reply in the savage tongue, stopped, and then went on.
“I forget—I don’t know. I am the doctor—a savage—what did you say?”
“Come with us,” I whispered, and he bent his head in the dark; but my words seemed to have no effect upon him, one idea seeming to be all that he could retain, for he hurried me on, grasping my arm tightly, and then loosed it and went on in front.
Jimmy took his place, gripping my arm in turn, and, whispering, showed his power of observation by saying:
“Much good him. No black fellow. Talk like Mass Joe some time. Jimmy tink um Mass Joe fader got dust in head. Don’t know know.”
“Oh no! impossible, Jimmy,” I whispered back with emotion. “It cannot be my father.”
“No fader? All um white fellow got mud mud in head. Can’t see, can’t know know. No Mass Joe fader?”
“No, I am sure it is not.”
“Then um white fellow. No black fellow. Tupid tupid. Don’t know at all. No find wallaby in hole. No find honey. No kedge fis. Tupid white fellow all a same, mud in um head.”
“He seems strange in his head,” I said.
“Yes. Iss mad mad. No wash um head clean. Can’t tink straight up an down ums like Jimmy.”
“But he is saving us,” I said. “Taking us to our friends.”
“Jimmy no know. Jimmy tink doctor somewhere right long—big hill. Gib black white fellow topper topper make um tink more.”
“No, no,” I whispered, for he had grasped his waddy and was about to clear our guide’s misty brain in this rough-and-ready way. “Be quiet and follow him.”
Just then our guide stopped and let me go to his side.
“Fever—my head,” he said softly, and as if apologising. “Can’t think.”
“But you will come with us?” I said. “My friend the doctor will help you. You shall help us. You must not go back to that degraded life.”
“Doctor!” he said, as if he had only caught that word. “Yes, the doctor. Can’t leave the people—can’t leave him.”
“Him!” I said; “that boy?”
“Hush! come faster.” For there were shouts and cries behind, and he hurried us along for some distance, talking rapidly to me all the while in the savages’ tongue, and apparently under the impression that I understood every word, though it was only now and then that I caught his meaning, and then it was because they were English words.
After catching a few of these I became aware, or rather guessed, that he was telling me the story of his captivity among these people, and I tried eagerly to get him to speak English; but he did not seem to heed me, going on rapidly, and apparently bent on getting us away.
I caught such words as “fever—prisoner—my head—years—misery—despair—always—savage—doctor”—but only in the midst of a long excited account which he said more to himself. I was at last paying little heed to him when two words stood out clear and distinctly from the darkness of his savage speech, words that sent a spasm through me and made me catch at his arm and try to speak, but only to emit a few gasping utterances as he bent down to me staring as if in wonder.
The words were “fellow-prisoner;” and they made me stop short, for I felt that I had really and providentially hit upon the right place after all, and that there could be only one man likely to be a fellow-prisoner, and that—my poor father.
It was impossible to flee farther, I felt, and leave him whom I had come to seek behind.
Then common sense stepped in and made me know that it was folly to stay, while Jimmy supplemented these thoughts by saying:
“Black fellow come along fas. Mass Joe no gun, no powder pop, no chopper, no knife, no fight works ’tall.”
“Where is he?” I said excitedly, as I held the arm of our guide.
“Blacks—coming after us.”
He talked on rapidly in the savage tongue and I uttered a groan of despair.
“What um say, Mass Joe?” whispered Jimmy excitedly. “Talk, talk, poll parrot can’t say know what um say. Come along run way fas. Fight nunner time o,” he added. “Black fellow come along.”
He caught my arm, and, following our guide, we hurried on through the darkness, which was so dense that if it had not been for the wonderful eyesight of my black companion—a faculty which seemed to have been acquired or shared by our guide—I should have struck full against the trunk of some tree. As it was, I met with a few unpleasant blows on arm or shoulder, though the excitement of our flight was too great for me to heed them then.
I was in despair, and torn by conflicting emotions: joy at escaping and at having reached the goal I had set up, misery at having to leave it behind just when I had found the light. It might have been foolish, seeing how much better I could serve him by being free, but I felt ready to hurry back and share my father’s captivity, for I felt assured that it must be he of whom our guide spoke.
We were hurrying on all this time entirely under the guidance of the strange being who had set us free, but not without protests from the black, who was growing jealous of our guide and who kept on whispering:
“No go no farrer, Mass Joe, Jimmy fine a doctor an Mass Jack Penny. Hi come along Jimmy now.”
He was just repeating this in my ear when we were hurrying on faster, for the sounds of our pursuers came clear upon the wind, when our guide stopped short and fell back a few paces as a low angry growl saluted him from the darkness in front and he said something sharply to us in the native tongue.
His words evidently meant “Fall back!” but I had recognised that growl.
“Gyp!” I cried; and the growling changed to a whining cry of joy, and in an instant the dog was leaping up at my face, playfully biting at my hands, and then darting at Jimmy he began the same welcoming demonstrations upon the black.
“Mass Joe, Mass Joe, he go eat up black fellow. Top um away, top um away.”
“It’s only his play, Jimmy,” I said.
“Him eat piece Jimmy, all up leggum,” cried the black.
“Here, Gyp!” I cried, as the dog stopped his whining cry of pleasure, but growled once more. “Here,” I said, “this is a friend. Pat his head, sir, and—, where is he, Jimmy?”
“Black white fellow, Mass Joe?”
“Yes, yes, where is he?”
“Gone ’long uder way. Run back fas fas. Fraid o Gyp, Gyp send um way.”
“Stop him! Run after him! He must not go,” I cried.
I stopped, for there was a low piping whistle like the cry of a Blue Mountain parrot back at home.
“Jack Penny!” I gasped, and I answered the call.
“Iss, yes, Mass Jack Penny,” cried Jimmy, and Gyp made a bound from my side into the darkness, leaving us alone.
We heard the crash and rustle of the underwood as the dog tore off, and I was about to follow, but I could not stir, feeling that if I waited our guide might return, when, in the midst of my indecision, the whistle was repeated, and this time Jimmy answered.
Then there was more rustling, the dog came panting back; and as the rustling continued there came out of the darkness a sound that made my heart leap.
It was only my name softly uttered, apparently close at hand, and I made a bound in the direction, but only to fall back half-stunned, for I had struck myself full against a tree.
I just remember falling and being caught by some one, and then I felt sick, and the darkness seemed filled with lights.
But these soon died out, and I was listening to a familiar voice that came, it appeared, from a long way off; then it came nearer and nearer, and the words seemed to be breathed upon my face.
“Only a bit stunned,” it said; and then I gasped out the one word:
“Doctor!”
“My dear Joe!” came back, and— well, it was in the dark, and we were not ashamed: the doctor hugged me to his heart, as if I had been his brother whom he had found.
Chapter Thirty One.How we made further Plans.“Why, Joe, my lad,” he said at last, in a voice I did not recognise, it was so full of emotion, “you’ve driven me half-wild. How could you get in such a fix?”“Jimmy get in big fix,” said an ill-used voice. “Nobody glad to see Jimmy.”“I’m glad to feel you,” drawled a well-known voice. “I can’t see you. How are you, Joe Carstairs? Where have you been?”“Jack, old fellow, I’m glad!” I cried, and I grasped his hands.“That will do,” said the doctor sternly. “Are the savages after you, Joe?”“Yes, in full pursuit, I think,” I said. “But my guide. I can’t leave him.”“Your guide? Where is he?”“I don’t know. He was here just now. He brought us here.”“Jimmy-Jimmy say um goes back along,” said the black. “He no top, big fright. Gyp bite um.”“One of the blacks, Joe?” said the doctor.“No, no!” I said, so excited that I could hardly speak coherently. “A white man—a prisoner among the blacks—like a savage, but—”“No, no,” said Jimmy in a disgusted tone; “no like savage black fellow-fellow. Got a dust in head. No tink a bit; all agone.”“His mind wanders, being a prisoner,” I stammered. “He is with the blacks—a prisoner—with my father.”“What?” cried the doctor.“He has a fellow-prisoner,” I faltered. “I am not sure—it must be—my father!”“Mass Joe find um fader all along,” said the black. “Jimmy find um too.”“Be silent!” cried the doctor. “Do I understand aright, Joe, that your father is a prisoner with the people from whom you have escaped?”“Yes—I think so—I am not sure—I feel it is so,” I faltered.“Humph!”“Have you seen him?”“No,” I said. “I did not know he was there till I was escaping.”“Jimmy see um. All rightums. Find Mass Joe fader.”“You saw him, Jimmy?” I panted.“Iss. Yes, Jimmy see him. Big long hair beard down um tummuck.”“You have seen him—the prisoner?” said the doctor.“Yes; iss Jimmy see um. Shut up all along. Sittum down, um look at ground all sleep, sleep like wallaby, wallaby.”“He means the poor fellow who helped us to escape,” I said sadly.“Jimmy see Mass Joe fader,” cried the black indignantly. “Jimmy take um right long show um.”“The man who brought us here?”“No, no, no, no!” cried Jimmy, dancing with vexation. “Not, not. Jimmy see um Mass Joe fader sit all along. See froo hole. Big long beard down um tummuck—long hair down um back. Um shake um head so, so. Say ‘hi—hi—ho—hum. Nev see home again. Ah, my wife! Ah, my boy!’”“You heard him say that, Jimmy?” I cried, catching him by the arm.“Jimmy sure, sure. Jimmy look froo hole. Den fro little tone an hit um, and den black fellow come along, and Jimmy lay fas’ sleep, eye shut, no move bit.”“He has seen him, Joe,” cried the doctor. “He could not have invented that.”There was a low whining growl here again from Gyp, and Jack Penny drawled:“I say, sha’n’t we all be made prisoners if we stop here?”“Quick!” said the doctor; “follow me.”“And our guide?” I cried.“We must come in search of him another time. If he has been with the blacks for long he will know how to protect himself.”I was unwilling to leave one who had helped us in such a time of need; but to stay meant putting ourselves beyond being able to rescue my father, if it were really he who was our guide’s fellow-prisoner. The result, of course, was that I followed the doctor, while a snuffling whine now and then told us that Gyp was on in front, and, in spite of the darkness, leading the way so well that there seemed to be no difficulty.“Where are we going?” I said, after a pause, during which we had been listening to the cries of the savages, which appeared to come from several directions.“To our hiding-place,” said the doctor. “Jimmy found it before we lost him, and we have kept to it since, so as to be near you.”“But how did you know you were near me?” I said.“Through Gyp first. He went away time after time, and I suspected that he had found you, so one day we followed him and he led us to the village.”“Yes?” I said.“Then we had to wait. I sent messages to you by him; and at last I got your answer. To-night we were coming again to try and reach you, perhaps get you away. We meant to try. I should not have gone back without you, my lad,” he said quietly.The cries now seemed distant, and we went slowly on through the darkness—slowly, for the trees were very close and it required great care to avoid rushing against them; but the doctor seemed to have made himself acquainted with the forest, and he did not hesitate till all at once the shouts of the blacks seemed to come from close by upon our right, and were answered directly from behind us.“A party of them have worked round,” whispered the doctor. “Keep cool. They cannot know we are so near. Hist! crouch down.”We were only just in time, for hardly had we crouched down close to the ground than the sound of the savages pushing forward from tree to tree was heard.I could not understand it at first, that curious tapping noise; but as they came nearer I found that each man lightly tapped every tree he reached, partly to avoid it, by the swinging of his waddy, partly as a guide to companions of his position.They came closer and closer, till it seemed that they must either see or touch us, and I felt my heart beat in heavy dull throbs as I longed for the rifle that these people had taken from me when they made me prisoner.I heard a faint rustle to my right, and I knew it was Jimmy preparing for a spring. I heard a slight sound on my left just as the nearest savage uttered a wild cry, and I knew that this was the lock of a gun being cocked. Then all was silent once more.Perhaps the savages heard the faint click, and uttered a warning, for the tapping of the trees suddenly ceased, and not the faintest sound could be heard.This terrible silence lasted quite five minutes. It seemed to me like an hour, and all the while we knew that at least a dozen armed savage warriors were within charging distance, and that discovery meant certain captivity, if not death.I held my breath till I felt that when I breathed again I should utter a loud gasp and be discovered. I dared not move to bury my face in my hands or in the soft earth, and my sensations were becoming agonising, when there was a sharp tap on a tree, so near that I felt the ground quiver. The tap was repeated to right and left, accompanied by a curious cry that sounded like “Whai—why!” and the party swept on.“A narrow escape!” said the doctor, as we breathed freely once more. “Go on, Gyp. Let’s get to earth; we shall be safer there.”I did not understand the doctor’s words then, but followed in silence, with Jack Penny coming close up to me whenever he found the way open, to tell me of his own affairs.“My back’s a deal better,” he whispered. “I’ve been able to rest it lately—waiting for you, and it makes it stronger, you know, and—”“Silence, Penny!” said the doctor reprovingly, and Jack fell back a few feet; and we travelled on, till suddenly, instead of treading upon the soft decayed-leaf soil of the forest, I found that we were rustling among bushes down a steep slope. Then we were amongst loose stones, and as the darkness was not quite so dense I made out by sight as well as by the soft trickling sound, that a little rivulet was close to our feet.This we soon afterwards crossed, and bidding me stoop the doctor led the way beneath the dense bushes for some little distance before we seemed to climb a stony bank, and then in the intense darkness he took me by the shoulders and backed me a few steps.“There’s quite a bed of branches there,” he said aloud. “You can speak out, we are safe here;” and pressing me down I sat upon the soft twigs that had been gathered together, and Jack Penny came and lay down beside me, to talk for a time and then drop off to sleep, an example I must have followed. For all at once I started and found that it was broad daylight, with the loud twittering song of birds coming from the bushes at the entrance of what seemed to be a low-roofed extensive cave, whose mouth was in the shelving bank of a great bluff which overhung a silvery-sounding musical stream.Some light came in from the opening; but the place was made bright by the warm glow that came from a kind of rift right at the far end of the cave, and through this was also wafted down the sweet forest scents.“Jimmy’s was a lucky find for us,” said the doctor, when I had partaken of the food I found they had stored there, and we had talked over our position and the probability of my belief being correct. “It is shelter as well as a stronghold;” and he pointed to the means he had taken to strengthen the entrance, by making our black followers bind together the branches of the tangled shrubs that grew about the mouth.In the talk that ensued it was decided that we would wait a couple of days, and then go by night and thoroughly examine the village. Jimmy would be able to point out the hut where my father was confined, and then if opportunity served we would bring him away, lie hidden here for a few days till the heat of the pursuit was over, and then escape back to the coast.I would not own to the doctor that I had my doubts, and he owned afterwards to me that his feeling was the same. So we both acted as if we had for certain discovered him of whom we came in search, and waited our time for the first venture.It was dangerous work hunting for food at so short a distance from the village, but our black followers, aided by Jimmy, were very successful, their black skins protecting them from exciting surprise if they were seen from a distance, and they brought in a good supply of fish every day simply by damming up some suitable pool in the little stream in whose bank our refuge was situated. This stream swarmed with fish, and it was deep down in a gully between and arched over by trees. The bows and arrows and Jimmy’s spear obtained for us a few birds, and in addition they could always get for us a fair supply of fruit, though not quite such as we should have chosen had it been left to us. Roots, too, they brought, so that with the stores we had there was not much prospect of our starving.In fact so satisfactory was our position in the pleasant temperate cave that Jack Penny was in no hurry to move.“We’re just as well here as anywhere else,” he said; “that is, if we had found your father.”“And got him safe here,” he added after a pause.“And the black chaps didn’t come after us,” he said after a little more thought.“And your mother wasn’t anxious about you,” he said, after a little more consideration.“You’ll find such a lot more reasons for not stopping, Jack Penny,” I said, after hearing him out, “that you’ll finish by saying we had better get our work done and return to a civilised country as soon as we can.”“Oh, I don’t know!” said Jack slowly. “I don’t care about civilised countries: they don’t suit me. Everybody laughs at me because I’m a bit different, and father gives it to me precious hard sometimes. Give me Gyp and my gun, and I should be happy enough here.”“Don’t talk like that, Jack,” I said in agony, as I thought of him who had helped me to escape, and of the prisoner he had mentioned, and whom the black professed to have seen. “Let’s get our task done and escape as soon as we can. A savage life is not for such as we.”That day we had an alarm.Our men had been out and returned soon after sunrise, that being our custom for safety’s sake. Then, too, we were very careful about having a fire, though we had no difficulty with it, for it burned freely, and the smoke rose up through the great crack in the rock above our heads, and disappeared quietly amongst the trees. But we had one or two scares: hearing voices of the blacks calling to each other, but they were slight compared to the alarm to which I alluded above.The men, I say, were back, having been more successful than usual—bringing us both fish and a small wild pig. We had made a good meal, and the doctor and I were lying on the armfuls of leafy boughs that formed our couch, talking for the twentieth time about our plans for the night, when all at once, just as I was saying that with a little brave effort we could pass right through the sleepy village and bring away the prisoner, I laid my hand sharply on the doctor’s arm.He raised his head at the same moment, for we had both heard the unmistakable noise given by a piece of dead twig when pressed upon by a heavy foot.We listened with beating hearts, trying to localise the very spot whence the sound came; and when we were beginning to breathe more freely it came again, but faint and distant.“Whoever it was has not found out that we are here,” I whispered.The doctor nodded; and just then Jack Penny, who had been resting his back, sat up and yawned loudly, ending by giving Jimmy, who was fast asleep, a sounding slap on the back.I felt the cold perspiration ooze out of me as I glanced at the doctor. Then turning over on to my hands and knees I crept to where Jimmy was threatening Jack with his waddy in much anger, and held up my hand.The effect was magical. They were silent on the instant, but we passed the rest of that day in agony.“I’m glad that we decided to go to-night,” the doctor said. “Whoever it was that passed must have heard us, and we shall have the savages here to-morrow to see what it meant.”The night seemed as if it would never come, but at last the sun went down, and in a very short time it was dark.Our plans were to go as near as we dared to the village as soon as darkness set in, place our men, and then watch till the savages seemed to be asleep, and then, by Jimmy’s help, seek out my father’s prison, bring him away to the cave, and there rest for a day or two, perhaps for several, as I have said. But the events of the day had made us doubtful of the safety of our refuge; and, after talking the matter over with the doctor, we both came to the conclusion that we would leave the latter part of our plan to take care of itself.“First catch your hare, Joe!” said the doctor finally. “And look here, my lad; I begin to feel confident now that this prisoner is your father. We must get him away. It is not a case oftry! Wemust, I say; and if anything happens to me—”“Happens to you!” I said aghast.“Well; I may be captured in his place!” he said smiling. “If I am, don’t wait, don’t spare a moment, but get off with your prize. I don’t suppose they will do more than imprison me. I am a doctor, and perhaps I can find some favour with them.”“Don’t talk like that, doctor!” I said, grasping his hand. “We must hold together.”“We must release your father!” he said sternly. “There, that will do.”
“Why, Joe, my lad,” he said at last, in a voice I did not recognise, it was so full of emotion, “you’ve driven me half-wild. How could you get in such a fix?”
“Jimmy get in big fix,” said an ill-used voice. “Nobody glad to see Jimmy.”
“I’m glad to feel you,” drawled a well-known voice. “I can’t see you. How are you, Joe Carstairs? Where have you been?”
“Jack, old fellow, I’m glad!” I cried, and I grasped his hands.
“That will do,” said the doctor sternly. “Are the savages after you, Joe?”
“Yes, in full pursuit, I think,” I said. “But my guide. I can’t leave him.”
“Your guide? Where is he?”
“I don’t know. He was here just now. He brought us here.”
“Jimmy-Jimmy say um goes back along,” said the black. “He no top, big fright. Gyp bite um.”
“One of the blacks, Joe?” said the doctor.
“No, no!” I said, so excited that I could hardly speak coherently. “A white man—a prisoner among the blacks—like a savage, but—”
“No, no,” said Jimmy in a disgusted tone; “no like savage black fellow-fellow. Got a dust in head. No tink a bit; all agone.”
“His mind wanders, being a prisoner,” I stammered. “He is with the blacks—a prisoner—with my father.”
“What?” cried the doctor.
“He has a fellow-prisoner,” I faltered. “I am not sure—it must be—my father!”
“Mass Joe find um fader all along,” said the black. “Jimmy find um too.”
“Be silent!” cried the doctor. “Do I understand aright, Joe, that your father is a prisoner with the people from whom you have escaped?”
“Yes—I think so—I am not sure—I feel it is so,” I faltered.
“Humph!”
“Have you seen him?”
“No,” I said. “I did not know he was there till I was escaping.”
“Jimmy see um. All rightums. Find Mass Joe fader.”
“You saw him, Jimmy?” I panted.
“Iss. Yes, Jimmy see him. Big long hair beard down um tummuck.”
“You have seen him—the prisoner?” said the doctor.
“Yes; iss Jimmy see um. Shut up all along. Sittum down, um look at ground all sleep, sleep like wallaby, wallaby.”
“He means the poor fellow who helped us to escape,” I said sadly.
“Jimmy see Mass Joe fader,” cried the black indignantly. “Jimmy take um right long show um.”
“The man who brought us here?”
“No, no, no, no!” cried Jimmy, dancing with vexation. “Not, not. Jimmy see um Mass Joe fader sit all along. See froo hole. Big long beard down um tummuck—long hair down um back. Um shake um head so, so. Say ‘hi—hi—ho—hum. Nev see home again. Ah, my wife! Ah, my boy!’”
“You heard him say that, Jimmy?” I cried, catching him by the arm.
“Jimmy sure, sure. Jimmy look froo hole. Den fro little tone an hit um, and den black fellow come along, and Jimmy lay fas’ sleep, eye shut, no move bit.”
“He has seen him, Joe,” cried the doctor. “He could not have invented that.”
There was a low whining growl here again from Gyp, and Jack Penny drawled:
“I say, sha’n’t we all be made prisoners if we stop here?”
“Quick!” said the doctor; “follow me.”
“And our guide?” I cried.
“We must come in search of him another time. If he has been with the blacks for long he will know how to protect himself.”
I was unwilling to leave one who had helped us in such a time of need; but to stay meant putting ourselves beyond being able to rescue my father, if it were really he who was our guide’s fellow-prisoner. The result, of course, was that I followed the doctor, while a snuffling whine now and then told us that Gyp was on in front, and, in spite of the darkness, leading the way so well that there seemed to be no difficulty.
“Where are we going?” I said, after a pause, during which we had been listening to the cries of the savages, which appeared to come from several directions.
“To our hiding-place,” said the doctor. “Jimmy found it before we lost him, and we have kept to it since, so as to be near you.”
“But how did you know you were near me?” I said.
“Through Gyp first. He went away time after time, and I suspected that he had found you, so one day we followed him and he led us to the village.”
“Yes?” I said.
“Then we had to wait. I sent messages to you by him; and at last I got your answer. To-night we were coming again to try and reach you, perhaps get you away. We meant to try. I should not have gone back without you, my lad,” he said quietly.
The cries now seemed distant, and we went slowly on through the darkness—slowly, for the trees were very close and it required great care to avoid rushing against them; but the doctor seemed to have made himself acquainted with the forest, and he did not hesitate till all at once the shouts of the blacks seemed to come from close by upon our right, and were answered directly from behind us.
“A party of them have worked round,” whispered the doctor. “Keep cool. They cannot know we are so near. Hist! crouch down.”
We were only just in time, for hardly had we crouched down close to the ground than the sound of the savages pushing forward from tree to tree was heard.
I could not understand it at first, that curious tapping noise; but as they came nearer I found that each man lightly tapped every tree he reached, partly to avoid it, by the swinging of his waddy, partly as a guide to companions of his position.
They came closer and closer, till it seemed that they must either see or touch us, and I felt my heart beat in heavy dull throbs as I longed for the rifle that these people had taken from me when they made me prisoner.
I heard a faint rustle to my right, and I knew it was Jimmy preparing for a spring. I heard a slight sound on my left just as the nearest savage uttered a wild cry, and I knew that this was the lock of a gun being cocked. Then all was silent once more.
Perhaps the savages heard the faint click, and uttered a warning, for the tapping of the trees suddenly ceased, and not the faintest sound could be heard.
This terrible silence lasted quite five minutes. It seemed to me like an hour, and all the while we knew that at least a dozen armed savage warriors were within charging distance, and that discovery meant certain captivity, if not death.
I held my breath till I felt that when I breathed again I should utter a loud gasp and be discovered. I dared not move to bury my face in my hands or in the soft earth, and my sensations were becoming agonising, when there was a sharp tap on a tree, so near that I felt the ground quiver. The tap was repeated to right and left, accompanied by a curious cry that sounded like “Whai—why!” and the party swept on.
“A narrow escape!” said the doctor, as we breathed freely once more. “Go on, Gyp. Let’s get to earth; we shall be safer there.”
I did not understand the doctor’s words then, but followed in silence, with Jack Penny coming close up to me whenever he found the way open, to tell me of his own affairs.
“My back’s a deal better,” he whispered. “I’ve been able to rest it lately—waiting for you, and it makes it stronger, you know, and—”
“Silence, Penny!” said the doctor reprovingly, and Jack fell back a few feet; and we travelled on, till suddenly, instead of treading upon the soft decayed-leaf soil of the forest, I found that we were rustling among bushes down a steep slope. Then we were amongst loose stones, and as the darkness was not quite so dense I made out by sight as well as by the soft trickling sound, that a little rivulet was close to our feet.
This we soon afterwards crossed, and bidding me stoop the doctor led the way beneath the dense bushes for some little distance before we seemed to climb a stony bank, and then in the intense darkness he took me by the shoulders and backed me a few steps.
“There’s quite a bed of branches there,” he said aloud. “You can speak out, we are safe here;” and pressing me down I sat upon the soft twigs that had been gathered together, and Jack Penny came and lay down beside me, to talk for a time and then drop off to sleep, an example I must have followed. For all at once I started and found that it was broad daylight, with the loud twittering song of birds coming from the bushes at the entrance of what seemed to be a low-roofed extensive cave, whose mouth was in the shelving bank of a great bluff which overhung a silvery-sounding musical stream.
Some light came in from the opening; but the place was made bright by the warm glow that came from a kind of rift right at the far end of the cave, and through this was also wafted down the sweet forest scents.
“Jimmy’s was a lucky find for us,” said the doctor, when I had partaken of the food I found they had stored there, and we had talked over our position and the probability of my belief being correct. “It is shelter as well as a stronghold;” and he pointed to the means he had taken to strengthen the entrance, by making our black followers bind together the branches of the tangled shrubs that grew about the mouth.
In the talk that ensued it was decided that we would wait a couple of days, and then go by night and thoroughly examine the village. Jimmy would be able to point out the hut where my father was confined, and then if opportunity served we would bring him away, lie hidden here for a few days till the heat of the pursuit was over, and then escape back to the coast.
I would not own to the doctor that I had my doubts, and he owned afterwards to me that his feeling was the same. So we both acted as if we had for certain discovered him of whom we came in search, and waited our time for the first venture.
It was dangerous work hunting for food at so short a distance from the village, but our black followers, aided by Jimmy, were very successful, their black skins protecting them from exciting surprise if they were seen from a distance, and they brought in a good supply of fish every day simply by damming up some suitable pool in the little stream in whose bank our refuge was situated. This stream swarmed with fish, and it was deep down in a gully between and arched over by trees. The bows and arrows and Jimmy’s spear obtained for us a few birds, and in addition they could always get for us a fair supply of fruit, though not quite such as we should have chosen had it been left to us. Roots, too, they brought, so that with the stores we had there was not much prospect of our starving.
In fact so satisfactory was our position in the pleasant temperate cave that Jack Penny was in no hurry to move.
“We’re just as well here as anywhere else,” he said; “that is, if we had found your father.”
“And got him safe here,” he added after a pause.
“And the black chaps didn’t come after us,” he said after a little more thought.
“And your mother wasn’t anxious about you,” he said, after a little more consideration.
“You’ll find such a lot more reasons for not stopping, Jack Penny,” I said, after hearing him out, “that you’ll finish by saying we had better get our work done and return to a civilised country as soon as we can.”
“Oh, I don’t know!” said Jack slowly. “I don’t care about civilised countries: they don’t suit me. Everybody laughs at me because I’m a bit different, and father gives it to me precious hard sometimes. Give me Gyp and my gun, and I should be happy enough here.”
“Don’t talk like that, Jack,” I said in agony, as I thought of him who had helped me to escape, and of the prisoner he had mentioned, and whom the black professed to have seen. “Let’s get our task done and escape as soon as we can. A savage life is not for such as we.”
That day we had an alarm.
Our men had been out and returned soon after sunrise, that being our custom for safety’s sake. Then, too, we were very careful about having a fire, though we had no difficulty with it, for it burned freely, and the smoke rose up through the great crack in the rock above our heads, and disappeared quietly amongst the trees. But we had one or two scares: hearing voices of the blacks calling to each other, but they were slight compared to the alarm to which I alluded above.
The men, I say, were back, having been more successful than usual—bringing us both fish and a small wild pig. We had made a good meal, and the doctor and I were lying on the armfuls of leafy boughs that formed our couch, talking for the twentieth time about our plans for the night, when all at once, just as I was saying that with a little brave effort we could pass right through the sleepy village and bring away the prisoner, I laid my hand sharply on the doctor’s arm.
He raised his head at the same moment, for we had both heard the unmistakable noise given by a piece of dead twig when pressed upon by a heavy foot.
We listened with beating hearts, trying to localise the very spot whence the sound came; and when we were beginning to breathe more freely it came again, but faint and distant.
“Whoever it was has not found out that we are here,” I whispered.
The doctor nodded; and just then Jack Penny, who had been resting his back, sat up and yawned loudly, ending by giving Jimmy, who was fast asleep, a sounding slap on the back.
I felt the cold perspiration ooze out of me as I glanced at the doctor. Then turning over on to my hands and knees I crept to where Jimmy was threatening Jack with his waddy in much anger, and held up my hand.
The effect was magical. They were silent on the instant, but we passed the rest of that day in agony.
“I’m glad that we decided to go to-night,” the doctor said. “Whoever it was that passed must have heard us, and we shall have the savages here to-morrow to see what it meant.”
The night seemed as if it would never come, but at last the sun went down, and in a very short time it was dark.
Our plans were to go as near as we dared to the village as soon as darkness set in, place our men, and then watch till the savages seemed to be asleep, and then, by Jimmy’s help, seek out my father’s prison, bring him away to the cave, and there rest for a day or two, perhaps for several, as I have said. But the events of the day had made us doubtful of the safety of our refuge; and, after talking the matter over with the doctor, we both came to the conclusion that we would leave the latter part of our plan to take care of itself.
“First catch your hare, Joe!” said the doctor finally. “And look here, my lad; I begin to feel confident now that this prisoner is your father. We must get him away. It is not a case oftry! Wemust, I say; and if anything happens to me—”
“Happens to you!” I said aghast.
“Well; I may be captured in his place!” he said smiling. “If I am, don’t wait, don’t spare a moment, but get off with your prize. I don’t suppose they will do more than imprison me. I am a doctor, and perhaps I can find some favour with them.”
“Don’t talk like that, doctor!” I said, grasping his hand. “We must hold together.”
“We must release your father!” he said sternly. “There, that will do.”