"The Wanderings of a Wayward Boy" (continued 4)

“Yes, Raggy, I know all the rest, and very grateful I am for your pluck, and all that, and if ever we get back again, I’ll report your good and brave conduct, and you’ll be well rewarded. Perhaps they’ll make you a captain, Raggy.”

“Massa is joking.”

“You go home now at once?” the boy asked, after a pause.

“Oh! no, Raggy. That would not be doing my duty. I’m going inland, and I’m going to try to find and redeem, or rescue our poor fellows. It would not be plucky nor brave to go back without them—at all events without trying to find them. Now, Raggy, as we are sure, if spared, to be some considerable time together, I wish you to do me the favour to teach Nanungamanoo to speak English.”

“De yeller nigger wi’ de long name, massa?”

“That is he, Raggy—Nanungamanoo.”

“Oh! lah! massa, I teachee he plenty propah, and suppose he no speak good, I give him five, six, ten stick all same as de schoolmastah ob de Bunting switchee me.”

“You better not try,” said Harry, laughing, “or you may find yourself in the wrong box. But here,” he cried aloud, “Nanungamanoo, where are you?”

Next moment Nanungamanoo stood silently before him awaiting his commands.

“You’ve got too long a name, Nanungamanoo.”

“Yes, sahib.”

“Well, we’ll shorten it. We’ll call you Jack. It’s free and easy.”

Jack expressed his pleasure to have an English name, so Jack he became.

“On all ‘occasions of ceremony or state,’ as the Navy List says, Jack, we will resort to your original designation, and you will be Nanungamanoo again.”

For three days and nights Harry and his merry men occupied the cave on the hillside.

At the end of this time they had the satisfaction one evening of seeing a red light gleaming on the western horizon. It was the reflection of the camp-fire of the returning caravan.

Early next morning, almost as soon as sunrise, Mahmoud and his followers passed through the forest at the foot of the hill. Harry could even hear them talking, so close were they.

He had the rifles loaded and everything ready to give them a warm reception should they dare to ascend. But they did not. They went through the forest and on their way across a broad sandy plain.

When they had quite disappeared beyond the horizon, Harry gave a sigh of relief. The danger was, comparatively speaking, over for a time. He would now give them a few days’ start, then go on behind, for Jack assured him this caravan route was the only practical way into the interior.

Every night the lions could be heard growling and roaring with that awe-inspiring cough, which they emit, in the woods around the hill. It was well they had a cave to sleep in, for to have lit fires on the hill-top would have ensured the return of Mahmoud and his savage Somalis, and they would have been captured. But a sentinel was set—and Harry took the post time about with Raggy and Somali Jack.

Was Jack really to be trusted? The answer to this is, that the faithfulness of a Somali Indian will be sold to the highest bidder, just like a picture at an auction mart, but it may in time be cemented to the purchaser if he is worthy of it. I have always found that there is a great deal of similarity betwixt the human nature as displayed by Indians and white men, which only proves that the world is much the same all over.

I must add, however, that white men as a rule treat savages with less ceremony and far less justice than they would mete out to one of their own dogs at home. Take an example. Some scoundrelly white trader has been murdered (it is called “murdered,” but I should say “killed”) by some islanders of the Pacific. This trading fellow had been on shore—probably not sober—abusing the hospitality held out to him, bullying and swaggering, and doing deeds that, if committed in this country, would secure for him a lengthened period of penal servitude. The worm turns at last and resents. The trader calls his men and a fight ensues; the savages are victorious, the white men slain. By and by in comes a British man-o’-war and demands the surrender of the murderers by the chief or king. Perhaps he does not even know them, refuses to give them up, and therein ensues a wholesale butchery of men, women, and children, and the burning of towns and villages.

I have known this happen over and over again, and I have asked myself, Who is to blame? Certainly not the so-called savages.

Well, boy-readers, if ever any of you happen to be away abroad, in Africa or the Pacific, and have a native as a servant, take my advice: treat him as a human being and a fellow-creature, and you will have no cause to complain, but quite the reverse.

Harry had a good long talk with Jack; he told him he should let him go away any time he wished, but that if he did stay he would have no cause to repent it.

Once more Jack took Harry’s hand in both his and bent himself down until his brow touched it, and our hero was satisfied.

On leaving the hill—which, by the way, Harry took possession of in the Queen’s name, and called it Mount Andrew, to show he had not forgotten his old friend in the Highlands—they journeyed on through the forest and followed in the very footsteps of Mahmoud’s caravan, across plains, through woods, through rivers and mountain glens, camping every night where Mahmoud had camped, and lighting a fire in the very same spot. The fire was very necessary now, and it had to be kept up all night, for they were in a country inhabited by and given up to, one might say, wild beasts.

Here were lions in scores, hyaenas and jungle-cats.

So all night long these animals made the bush resound with their cries.

Sometimes Harry found it almost impossible to sleep, so terrible was the quarrelling and din. He fell upon a plan at last that in some measure remedied the infliction—that of leaving the bullock or two, or the deer or hartebeest slain for food, a good two or three miles behind. Where the carrion is, there cometh the kite; and so it was in this case—to some extent at all events.

The store of rice that Jack had looted from Mahmoud’s camp very soon was done, but they did not want for provisions for all that.

There were fruits of so many kinds, and roots that they dug up, or rather that Jack dug up and roasted in the camp-fire. Then there were plantains, which are excellent cooked in the same primitive style. Some of the forest trees were laden with fruit; the danger lay in eating too much of it. Many of these fruits were quite unknown to Harry, but he was guided by his best man, Jack. With so much fruit, salt was hardly missed, though at first Harry thought it strange to eat meat without it.

Slices from the most tender portions of the animals killed were cut and carried along with them, and towards evening, when the bivouac ground was chosen, and the fire of wood gathered and kindled by Jack and Raggy, the former set to work to prepare the supper.

The roots, yams principally, were simply buried among the fiery ashes, but a far more artistic method was adopted in grilling the steak: a triangle of green wood was built over the fire as soon as it had died down to red embers, across the triangle bars were fastened, and on this were hung the pieces of juicy flesh. When the bars were nearly burned through, and the wooden triangle itself falling to pieces, then the steak was cooked.

They had fresh air and exercise, and consequently the appetite of mighty hunters. It is hardly necessary, therefore, to add that they really enjoyed their dinners. Fruit followed, then water, which was not always good.

The country they traversed now, though a hilly and fertile one, was, strange to say, deserted.

Still, this is not so strange when we remember that in all probability it has been depopulated by the Arab slaver. Indeed, many parts of the forest gave evidence of having been ravished by fire.

Bravery, I take it, is not a very uncommon quality in the human breast of any inhabitant of our British islands, yet he is the bravest man who knows his danger and still does not fear to face it. In the matter of danger, where ignorance is bliss ’tis folly to be wise. Your first-voyage sailor will retain his presence of mind and coolness, at times when old seafarers are pale with the coldness of a coming evil. Why? Because he does not know the worst. This is not bravery. It is—nothing.

If, however, one is so positioned as to know there is danger, but remains in ignorance as to its amount or extent, then he has a bold heart who can quietly meet or court it. I have hinted before in this tale of mine that I claim for my wayward boy, Harry, no extraordinary qualities of mind, and that he had his faults just as you have, reader; so now I need not apologise for him when I confess to you that in the wild African jungle there were many times that his heart beat high with fear. Especially was this so at first. All bold, brave natures are finely strung and sensitive. Harry’s was. He did not like the dangers of the darkness, and he dreaded snakes. At the commencement, then, of his wanderings on the dark continent he expected to see one whenever a bunch of grass quivered or moved, though only a mole might have been at the bottom of it. And I believe at night he heard sounds and saw sights in the bush and on the plains, that had no existence except in his own fervid imagination.

However, a month or two of nomad life hardened him. He noticed that even serpents do not go out of their way to bite people, and that you have only to observe a certain amount of caution, then you may put your hands in your pockets and whistle.

As far as that goes, I believe you might put your hands in your pockets and go whistling up to a lion “on the roam.” My illustrious countryman, the great General Gordon, did this or something very like it once. I would not, nor would I advise you to do so, reader; but I have to say, as regards my hero, Harry, that familiarity bred in him a contempt for danger that led him to grief.

I will tell you the story after making just one remark. It is this—and happy I would be this minute if I thought you would lay it to heart and remember it. We are apt to pray to our Father to keep us from evil, and then, when something occurs to us, some accident, perhaps, turn round and murmur and say—

“Oh! my prayers have not been heard. God loves me not.”

How know you, I ask, that He in His mercy has not allowed this little misfortune to befall us in order to save us from a greater?

Harry was carelessly walking one evening—he was waiting for dinner—in a grove of rugged euphorbias. The evening was very beautiful, the sun declining in the west towards a range of high hills which they had that day passed. There was a great bank of purple-grey clouds loftier than the hills; these were fringed with pale gold, else you could not have told which was mountain and which was cloud. There was also a breeze blowing, just enough to make a rustling sound among the cactuses and scrub. This it was probably that prevented Harry from hearing the stealthy footsteps of an enormous lion, until startled by a roar that made the blood tingle in his very shoes.

There he was—the African king of beasts—not twenty yards away—crouched, swishing his tail on the grass, and preparing for a spring.

Harry stood spellbound.

Then he tried to raise his rifle.

“No, you don’t,” the lion must have thought. For at that very moment he sprang, and next Harry was down under him.

He remembered a confused shout, and the sharp ring of a rifle. Then all was a mist of oblivion till he found himself lying near the camp-fire, with Jack kneeling by his side holding his arm.

“I’m not hurt, am I?” said Harry.

“Oh, massa, you am dun killed completely,” sobbed little Raggy. “All de blood in you body hab run out. You quite killed. You not lib. What den will poor Raggy do?”

It was not so bad as Raggy made out, however. But Harry’s wounds were dreadful enough, back and shoulder lacerated and arm bitten through.

Harry had made it a point all the journey since leaving the hill he called Mount Andrew to camp each night on the same place Mahmoud had left days before, and to build the fire in the self-same spot, and on departing in the morning to leave nothing behind that could tell the Arab’s sharp-eyed Somalis the ground had been used.

It was well he had taken this precaution, for now he was wounded and ill, and must remain near this place for weeks at least.

Jack, the Somali, was equal to the occasion.

He went away to the forest, and was not long in finding a site for the invalid’s camp.

Like that upon Mount Andrew, it was on a hill or eminence, from which the country eastwards could be seen for many, many miles. And here also was a shelter under a rock from the direct rays of the sun.

Next day, and for several days, poor Harry tossed about on his couch in a raging fever.

But Jack proved an excellent surgeon, and Raggy the best of nurses. The former applied cooling and healing antiseptic leaves to Harry’s wounds, and bound them tenderly up with bundles of grass, while the latter hardly ever left his master’s couch, except to seek for and bring him the most luscious fruit the forest could afford.

Long, long weary weeks passed away, but still Harry lay there in his cave on the hillside too weak to stand, too ill to move.

Between them his two faithful servants had built him a hut of branches and grass, which not only defended him against the sun, but against the rain as well—for the wet season had now set in. Thunders rolled over the plains and reverberated from the mountain sides, and at times the rain came down in terrible “spatters” that in volume far exceeded anything Harry could ever have dreamt of.

But the rain cooled and purified the atmosphere, and seemed to so revive Harry, that his wounds took on what surgeons call the healing intention.

Raggy was a joyful boy then, and honest Jack, the Somali—for he had proved himself honest by this time—was doubly assiduous in his endeavours to perfect a cure.

One afternoon, while Jack was talking to his master, Raggy, who had been in the forest, ran in breathless and scared.

“Golly-mussy!” he cried, “dey come, dey come. Where shall we hide poor massa? Dey come, dey come.”

Book Three—Chapter Five.

The Return of the Caravans—Night in the Forest—The Dying Slave Boy.

Mahmoud had not found the slave-dealing king in quite so good a temper on this journey. The reason was not far to seek. A brother potentate, who dwelt just beyond a range of mountains to the east of him, had by some means or other possessed himself of two white slaves—Greeks they were, and had been brought from very far north. This king was his greatest enemy—near neighbours though they were—and many and deadly were the combats that used to rage among the hills. In fact, their two imperial highnesses lived in a state of continual warfare. Sentinels of both parties were placed day and night on the highest mountains, to spy out the actions of the opposite kingdoms. It was no unusual thing for these sentinels to get to lighting on their own account, and when they did they never failed to chew each other up, though not quite so much so as the Kilkenny cats, of which, as you know, nothing was left but two little morsels of fluff, one tooth and one toe-nail—but very nearly as bad as that. The rival kings did not care a bit; they looked upon the affair as a natural dénouement, and set more sentinels, while the vultures gobbled up whatsoever remained of the last.

But this rival king beyond the hills owned those white slaves, and the king, who loved rum, was very jealous and greatly incensed in consequence. Thrice he had made war upon him with a view of possessing himself of the coveted Greeks, and thrice had he been hurled back with infinite slaughter.

Then Mahmoud had come to him, and the king stated his case while he drank some rum, and Mahmoud promised that next time he returned he would bring him one or more white slaves, that would far outshine those possessed by the king beyond the hills, whose name, by the way, was King Kara-Kara.

But behold Mahmoud had returned, and no white slave with him! Harry, as we know, having escaped.

No wonder, then, that King ’Ngaloo had raged and stormed. This he did despite the fact that the Somalis were called to witness that it was no fault of Mahmoud’s, and that their prisoner had really and truly escaped. King ’Ngaloo had serious thoughts of ordering the priest Mahmoud to instant execution, but was so mollified at the sight of the other gifts brought him that he forgave him.

These gifts were many and varied. Rum came first, then beads, blue, crimson, white and black, and of various sizes, then jack-knives and daggers, white-iron whistles, a drum of large dimensions, a concertina, and a pair of brass lacquered tongs. These last two gifts were the best fun of all, for King ’Ngaloo, squatting in the middle of his tent floor with his wives all round him or near him, would sip rum and play the concertina time about. His playing was peculiar. After he had finished about half a bottle of the fire-water he began to feel his heart warm enough to have some fun, on which he would jump up and with his brass tongs seize one of his wives by the nose, drawing her round and round the tent, she screaming with pain, he with laughter, till one would have thought all bedlam was let loose.

Yes, the king was pacified, and Mahmoud was allowed to depart, with an addition to his caravan of one hundred poor victims who were to be dragged away into slavery.

He went away much sooner than he had intended had he been successful in getting more slaves. And besides, the truth is, Mahmoud was a little afraid that the king might take it into his head to pull him round the tent with the tongs, and Mahmoud had a profound respect for his nose.

I really think it was a pity the king did not do so.

Only it was evident the king had other thoughts in his head, for one day he jumped up, and after practising the tongs exercise on his prime minister for five minutes, he held the instrument of torture aloft and snapped it wildly in the air.

“Teiah roota Kara-Kara yalla golla,” he shouted, or some such words, “I’ll never be content till I seize Kara-Kara by the nose, and the tongs shall be made red-hot for the purpose.”

“I’d send and tell him so,” that is what Mahmoud had suggested.

“Dee a beeseeta—I’ll do so,” said the king.

And away the messenger was sent to King Kara-Kara.

The messenger obeyed his instructions, and King Kara-Kara took much pleasure in cutting off his head, but as this was no more than the messenger had expected there was not much harm done.

But, and it is a big “but,” had King ’Ngaloo only known that at the very time Mahmoud was in his camp or village, his “brother” Suliemon was in that of the rival potentate, and that he had sold him the unfortunate men of the Bunting, Mahmoud would not have been allowed to depart, unless he could have done so without his head. For both Mahmoud and his “brother” were excellent business men, and were not at all averse to playing into each other’s hands.

Before Mahmoud had left the town of this African potentate he was allowed to choose his slaves. He chose, to begin with, a day on which King Kara-Kara had imbibed even more rum than usual. Indeed, he was so absurdly tipsy that he could not hold the tongs.

He was determined to see that he was not cheated for all that, and so, supported on one side by his prime minister, and on the other by one of his priests, the chief executioner, sword in hand, coming up behind, he waddled out to the great square in which the poor unhappy souls, men and women, from whom Mahmoud was to make his choice were drawn up.

The first thing the king did after getting outside was to give vent to an uncontrollable fit of laughing. Nobody knew what he was laughing at, nor, I dare say, did he himself. But he suddenly grew serious, hit his prime minister on the face with his open palm, and asked why he dared laugh in his august presence.

Though his nose bled a little, the minister said nothing; he was used to all the king’s little eccentricities, and this was one of them.

After he had got into the square, the king desired to be informed what the meeting was all about.

“Execution, isn’t it?” That is what he said in his own language.

“That fellow Mahmoud’s white head is coming off, isn’t it? Turban and all? Turban and all, ha! ha! ha! I told him I would do it. And I will.”

No wonder Mahmoud had trembled in his sandals.

But King ’Ngaloo was soon put right.

Then Mahmoud made his choice.

He hesitated not to tear asunder mother and child, husband and wife, sister and brother. It was merely a case of youth and strength with him.

When he had finished, the slaves were at once chained together, and soon after, having bidden farewell to this pretty king, the march was commenced.

There was weeping and wailing among the new-made slaves, and there was weeping and wailing among those left behind.

But what cared Mahmoud?

As they marched away, while ’Ngaloo’s warlike tom-toms were beating, and his chanters sounding, a music that was almost demoniacal, the poor captives as with one accord cast a glance around them at the village—which, savage though it was, had been their home—but which they would never, never see again. Just one wild despairing glance, nothing more. Then heavily fell the lash on the naked shoulders of the last pairs, and on they went.

“Dey come, dey come!” cried Raggy, in despair.

Yes, they were coming—Mahmoud’s caravan and his wretched slaves. They were soon in sight, looking just the same as when last seen, only with that dark and mournful chained line between the swarthy spear-armed Somalis.

Harry prayed inwardly that they might pass on. They did not, but stopped to bivouac on the old camping ground.

And yet our hero could not help admitting to himself that his adventure with the lion that had delayed his journey had really been meant for his good. It had saved his life to all appearance, for Mahmoud had returned far sooner than even Jack—who knew the road and the work before his old master—could have dreamed of.

This only proves, I think, reader, that we are shortsighted mortals, and that our prayers may truly be answered, although things may not turn out just as we would have desired them.

In the morning Mahmoud seemed in no hurry to leave, and the day wore on without very much stir in his camp. It was an anxious day for Harry and his companions, just as it had been a long and anxious night. They never knew the moment the sharp-sighted Somalis might find their trail and track them to their cave on the hill.

The recent rains alone probably prevented so great a catastrophe, else beside that camp-fire a scene of blood would have been enacted that makes one shudder even to think about.

In the afternoon there rushed into Mahmoud’s camp, wildly waving his spear aloft, one of the Somali spies. Then the commotion in the camp grew intense. Mahmoud shortly after left the place all alone, and in less than twenty minutes returned with his so-called brother Suliemon.

This very spot there was the rendezvous for these slave-dealers on their return from their expedition. Behind Suliemon came a vast crowd of chained slaves. There could not have been less than a thousand. How tired they appeared! No sooner was the order to halt given, than they threw themselves on the grass, just as weary sheep would have done returning from a fair.

There was no movement that night, so Harry and his merry men had to lie close like foxes in their lair.

Next morning, however, as early as daybreak, the whole camp was astir, and for nearly two hours the shouting and howling, the firing of guns and cracking of whips were hideous to hear. The scene near the camp-fire was like some awful pandemonium.

But by ten o’clock, as nearly as Harry could judge, every one had gone, and silence once more reigned over forest and plain.

Our hero breathed more freely now, yet it would have been madness for any of them to have ventured forth even yet. Some loitering Somali might have seen him and given instant alarm.

Strange to say, the excitement appeared to have almost restored Harry to health. He no longer felt weak, and he longed to be away on the road again.

He knew enough of the climate, however, not to venture for a week or two longer, for a man needs all the nerve and strength that the human frame can possess to battle against the odds presented to him on such a journey as that which he was now making.

The day wore away, the sun set in a cloudscape of indescribable glory, the short twilight succeeded, then the stars peeped out through the blue rifts in the sky.

After a supper of fruit and roasted yams, Harry lay down on his couch of grass and fell into a dreamless sleep.

When he awoke, the stars were still shining and the sky was far more clear. A brightly burning scimitar of a moon was declining towards the horizon, and not far from it, to the west and north, the well-known constellation of Orion. Yonder also, blinking red and green, was the great Mars himself.

But it was not to study the stars that Harry had crept out of the tent, but to breathe fresher air, for there was no wind to-night. Not a branch stirred in the forest, not a leaf moved. The wild beasts had been scared far away, only now and then a lion roared, and the screams of the wild birds filled up the intervals. Dreadfully eerie they are to listen to on a night like this, and in such a lonely scene.

“Eeah—eee—ah—eeah—eeah—ah!” screamed one bird.

“Tak—tak—tak—tak!”—cried another.

“Willikin, willikin, willikin, willikin?” shrieked a third.

Then there are mournful unearthly yells and groans that would make the heart of a novice stand still with dread. He would feel convinced foul murder was being done in the gloomy depths of the forest. (It is possible the monkeys take their part in producing the cries one hears by night in forests of the tropics.)

But Harry could sleep no more.

The sentries were being relieved. Raggy had just turned up, and Somali Jack was about to turn in.

“Let us take a stroll down by the camp-fire,” said Harry. “I feel I must stretch my legs, night though it be.”

Together they went as far as the old camping ground, and were about to leave when a pained and weary groan fell on Harry’s ear.

He soon discovered whence it issued. From the lips of a poor half-naked dark figure, lying stabbed and dying on the grass.

All this he could see by the light of moon and stars. He sat down beside the poor creature and took his head on his lap. The white eyes rolled up towards him, the lips were parted in a grateful smile.

One word was all he said or could say.

“What is it, Jack?” asked Harry. “Interpret, please.”

“It only says thanks, sahib.”

“Run for water, Raggy.”

The dying slave boy drinks just one gulp of the water. Again the white eyes are turned towards Harry, again the lips are parted in a smile—and then he is still.

For ever still.

Perhaps it is because Harry was nervous and ill; but he cannot prevent a gush of tears to his eyes as he bends over this murdered boy.

“What a demon’s heart the man must have to commit a sin like this!”

Book Three—Chapter Six.

The Land of Depopulation—In a Beast-Haunted Wilderness—A Mystery—A Strange King.

Three months have elapsed since the night Harry found the dying slave lad on the grass, near the old camp-fire Harry is as strong now as ever. Nay, he is even stronger. He has had a birthday since then, and now in his own mind calls himself a man.

He is a man in heart at all events, a man in pluck and a man in manliness.

The trio—Somali Jack, Raggy, and Harry—are very friendly now.

Only once did Jack allude to that night when they fled from Mahmoud’s camp. It is in terms of admiration and in broken English.

“You give me proper trashing that night. I think I feel your shut hand on my nose now. Wah-ee! he do make him smart, and my eyes all fill with water hat hat ha!”

Yes, Jack could afford to laugh now, for Harry was not a bad master to him.

Somali Jack is happier, and, to use his own words—

“I have one stake in de world now. I all same as one Arab, I have a soul. You, master, have said so. I believe what my master says. Of course I believe what he tell me. I not all same as one koodoo—die on de hill and rot. No, I float away, away, away, past de clouds, and past de stars to de bright land of love, where Jesu reigns. Oh yes, Somali Jack is happy and proud.”

The trio are now in an unknown land.

It might be called the Land of Depopulation, for long ago the few natives that slavery left have died or fled away. There is hardly a vestige of the remains of their villages, only here and there a kind of clearing with what appears to be a hedge around it. But if you pulled away the creepers on top of this you would find old rotten palisades—indication enough that those poor creatures had made some vain attempts at defending themselves against the inroads of the Arab invader.

Harry had not long continued in the caravan route that led to the land of the drunken king. The sights he came upon every now and then while following it were sickening. It was quite evident that of the hundred slaves whom Mahmoud had chosen, at least twenty had fallen by the way, in rather less than three weeks, and been left to perish in the bush or on the grass beneath a blazing sun.

He would have followed the more southern route, and endeavour to find out the whereabouts of his fellows, but such a proceeding would have been absurdly impracticable. A white slave is thought worth a thousand black at some of the courts of African kings. He could not have redeemed his men, and to have attempted to rescue them in any other way would have only ended in failure, and in slavery to himself and companions. No, there was at present no hope. But he had more than one plan which he meant to try when a chance should occur.

For the three months past they had had plenty of sport, and a world of adventures far too numerous to mention. Harry, however, had only a very scant supply of ammunition, and but little likelihood of obtaining any further supply. Every cartridge was therefore carefully hoarded, and only used either for the purpose of protection against wild beasts or to secure themselves food.

As to this latter they managed in a great measure without firing a shot. For, first and foremost, Somali Jack had a most nimble way of catching fish. He did it by getting into shallow streams, sometimes diving in under the water and dragging a fish out from under bank or rock where it had sought shelter.

Then he could twine grass ropes; these were stretched along in certain likely places, near which Jack concealed himself, spear in hand, all alert and ready. The other part of this peculiar hunt was performed by Harry and the boy Raggy. They managed, and that very successfully, as a rule, to chase wild deer, of which there were so many different sorts and sizes, down towards the clever Somali. In their headlong hurry one at least was almost sure to trip over the rope and fall. In a moment Jack was up and on him, and next minute—there was something good for dinner.

I wish I could describe to you one-thousandth part of all the curious things Harry noticed in natural history, not only among the larger animals, but among the smaller, namely, the birds, and among the smallest—the creeping creatures of the earth.

I wish I could describe to you a few of the lovely scenes he witnessed in this beast-haunted wilderness: the landscapes, the cloudscapes, the lovely sunsets, the wilderies of fruit and flower, and the scenes among the mountains, some of which, high, high up in the air, were even snow-capped, and ever at sunrise assumed that pearl-pink hue with purple shadow which once witnessed can never be forgotten in life. The scenes by river and lake were also most enchanting at times.

But do not think these wanderers had it all their own way. No, they went with their lives in their hands, and these lives were very often in jeopardy.

Poor little Raggy was once tossed by a herd of buffaloes. I say a herd of buffaloes advisedly, for really they seemed nearly all to have a fling at him. The last one pitched him up into a tree, where, for a time, he was an object of the most profound interest to a band of chattering apes. They could not conceive who or what the new arrival was, nor where he had come from.

Well, then, Somali Jack had to climb up and shake the branch to dislodge Raggy’s apparently dead body, while Harry stood under to catch it and break the fall.

But Raggy was not dead. Not a bit of him; and presently he got up and scratched his poll and gazed about him like a somnambulist.

“Am de buffaloes all gone, massa?” he inquired.

“The buffaloes, Rag? Yes, and it seems to me you are made of indiarubber; why, they played lawn tennis with you.”

“Well, massa,” said Raggy, “it was some fun to de buffaloes anyhow, and it not hurt Raggy much.”

Another day Harry had narrowly escaped being killed by a rhinoceros. Quiet enough these animals are at times, but whatever other travellers may say, I advise you to keep out of their track when they lose temper.

Somali Jack was one day posted behind his rope when down thundered a small herd of giraffes. Over went number three. Out came Jack and attacked him, but, like the witch in Tam o’ Shanter—

“Little wist he that beast’s mettle.”

One kick sent Jack flying yards and yards away; the blow alighted on his chest, and, strange to say, the blood sprang from his nose and mouth.

Jack said nobody could hit so hard as a giraffe unless his master, and he never tried again to spear a—

“Roebuck run to seed.”

They had now many rivers to cross and miles on miles to walk sometimes before they could find a ford. But the current seldom ran very strong. The worst of it was that often, even after they found the ford and got over, there was a marsh to cross, worse than any bog in old Ireland.

Many of these marshes were infested with crocodiles. Oh, how innocent these brutes can appear, basking in the sunshine on the banks, or lying in shallow streams with nothing out and up except their hideous heads!

Yonder, for example, is one immense skull, not far from the bank. He is asleep, is he not? Go a little closer. He never moves. You feel sure he is good-natured, and that the crocodile is a much-libelled reptile. Go closer still and look at him. Ugly enough he is, but so innocent-looking! You would like to smoothe him, wouldn’t you, little boy?

Snap! Where are you now? It is sincerely to be hoped that your mamma has another good little boy like you to supply your place, for you will never be seen again.

And your great “good-natured” crocodile is very playful now, and goes away swishing through the water to tell all the other crocodiles how very happy he feels, because he has a little boy in his stomach.

They came, at length, to a range of rugged hills which it took them a whole day to get across. They encamped at night in a dreary glen, and had to keep a great fire burning until the sun rose over the mountains, for this glen seemed to be the home par excellence of the lions. These monsters, many of which they saw, were the largest they had yet fallen in with.

They were evidently filled with resentment at the daring invasion of their territory, and made not only night hideous with their threatening and growling, but sleep quite impossible.

Harry was glad enough to continue the journey next day as early as possible, but they had not got far before a terrible thunderstorm made all pedal progression quite impossible for the time being. It was well they were pretty high up among the hills, for with the thunder and lightning came a wind of hurricane force; they could hear the great trees smashing in the forest beneath them, and noticed scores of wild beasts seeking sheltered corners in which to hide till the violence of the storm should abate.

Another night in this mountain forest; another night among the wild beasts.

Next day was bright and fine, but not for hours after did the sun appear, owing to the mists that were rising all over the land.

On the evening of that same day they came to the margin of what appeared at first to be a broad rolling river. There were a few native canoes on it.

One immensely large dug-out was soon observed coming towards them, so it was evident they were already seen. In the stern sheets, when it came near enough, Harry could descry a single figure sitting under the broad canopy of an umbrella.

No one else in the boat, and the figure astern not moving a muscle!

“How is it done?” said Harry to himself. “It is a mystery. Can these savages have invented electricity as a motor power?”

Nearer and nearer came the boat, but the mystery was as far from being explained as ever.

The individual who sat in the boat was a portly negro, very black, very comely and jolly-looking. He was dressed from the shoulders to the knees in a loose blue robe of cotton cloth. This appeared to be simply rolled round the loins and then carried over the shoulder. On his head he wore a skin hat with the hairy side out and a long tail hanging down behind it. Round his neck was a string of lions’ tusks, in his ears immense copper rings, in one hand a broad-bladed spear, and in the other a long shield of hide studded with copper nails.

The umbrella was a fixture behind him.

While Harry and his companions were still gazing at this singular being with a good deal of curiosity, not unmixed with apprehension, the prow of the boat touched land, and immediately the motor power was explained. This was, after all, only a big hulking negro who had been wading behind and pushing with his head. He had not come here unguarded, however. For dozens of armed canoes now made an appearance, and took up a position in two rows, one at each side of what was undoubtedly the royal barge.

The king stepped boldly on shore, and nodded and smiled to Harry in the most friendly way.

“Good morning,” said Harry, nodding and smiling in turn; “fine day, isn’t it?”

Of course the king could not reply, but leaning on his spear he walked three times round Harry and his companions, then three times round Harry alone. It was pretty evident he had never seen a white man before.

Then he touched Harry’s clothes, and felt all along them as one smoothes a dog. Then he said:

“Lobo! Lobo!” (Strange, or wonderful.)

He next proceeded to an examination of Harry’s face. He wetted the end of his blue robe in the lake and tried to rub the bloom off Harry’s cheeks.

“I don’t paint,” Harry said, quietly.

“Lobo!” said the king again.

Harry’s buttons now fixed the king’s attention.

He pulled the jacket towards him and tried to cut one off with the end of his spear.

Then Harry smacked his fingers for him, and the king started back with a fierce look in his eye.

“Lobo! Lobo!” he cried, excitedly.

“Keep your fingers to yourself, then,” said Harry.

But thinking he had gone too far, he immediately cut two buttons off and presented them to this queer king.

His majesty was all smiles again in a moment. He intimated his pleasure and gratitude in a neat little speech that Harry could make neither head nor tail of, but was glad to find that little Raggy could translate it even more freely than Somali Jack.

For from somewhere near these regions Raggy had originally come. So he told Harry; he also said, “I ’spect I has a mudder livin’ hereabouts some-wheres.”

“Would you know her, Raggy, if you saw her?”

“I not know her from any oder black lady,” replied Raggy, grandly; “’sides,” he added, “dis chile Raggy hab no wish to renew de ’quaintance.”

The warriors in the king’s canoes sat as motionless as if they had been made out of wood, and then tarred over and glued to their seats. They looked friendly, but it was quite evident they would take their cue from his majesty, and were just as ready to drown Harry in the lake as to give him a welcome.

“Peace at any price is the best policy in this case,” said Harry. “Eh, Raggy, what say you?”

“Suppose massa want to fight, den Raggy fight; suppose we fight, dey gobble us all up plenty quick; suppose we not fight, den dey make much of us and give us curry and chicken.”

“All right, Raggy, we’ll go in for the curried chicken. Tell this sable king that we have come a long long way to see him, and to give him some presents, and that we then want to pass through his country and go on our way in peace.”

All this Raggy duly translated, and Harry strongly suspected that he added a little bit of his own to it. But this is a liberty that interpreters very often take.

The king was laughing. The king was pleased. He pointed to the boat and led the way towards it and without a moment’s hesitation Harry stepped on board, and in another minute they were all away out in the open lake.

Book Three—Chapter Seven.

Amazons—The Lake of the Hundred Isles—The Feast of Flowers.

When the king’s barge left the shore, shoved slowly along by the head of the big hulking negro, Harry, of course, had not the faintest notion whence he was being taken.

Perhaps he was just a trifle reckless. He was so at most times, but in this case I imagine he was in the right. For the worst thing one can do on meeting strange savages is to show mistrust or fear of them. If you mistrust them, they at once suspect you, and the consequences may sometimes be anything but pleasant.

It was not long before our hero found out that it was indeed a lake, and not a broad river, on which he was embarked, and that it was studded with about a hundred islands, over all of which this black host of theirs was evidently the potentate.

He landed on one of the largest of them, and on a kind of rude pier where nearly a hundred armed amazons were drawn up to receive their lord and his guests.

Harry afterwards found out that he kept ten amazons for every island, but they all lived near the royal residence, and were his especial body-guard. Fierce-looking, stalwart hussies they were, with knives in their girdles, spears in their hands, and leather-covered shields, that were nearly as big and wide as barn doors.

Over these shields they grinned and glared in a way that was really hideous. They rolled their eyes round and round incessantly, as if they had been moved like clock-work. Perhaps, thought Harry, they go in for eye-drill in this queer country. The reason of this optical movement, he was afterwards told, was to prove to the king that danger could come to him from no direction without their seeing it.

These amazons were dressed in sacks of cocoa-cloth, and wore tippets of skins not unlike those of your dandy coachmen in Hyde Park. From their legs and arms, behind and below, feathers stuck out, and as head-dresses their own hair was done up into an immense dome, which stood straight up and was adorned with the feathers of the red ibis.

All this Harry took in at a glance as he walked on behind the king, through an avenue of most splendid trees, towards his palace.

I must dismiss the palace with a single sentence. It was not unlike a haycock of immense size, with a door in the side, or like the half of a cocoanut turned upside down. It was in an enclosure, in the very middle of the island, and near it were the huts of the king’s amazons, the whole being defended by a strong palisade of roughly hewn wood.

The huts of his other warriors—and every one appeared to be a warrior in this island—were outside the fort and different in shape and appearance. They were, if anything, more elaborately built, and had verandahs supporting their roofs, which only proved that his majesty was a man of simple tastes, and preferred looking after the well-being of his subjects rather than his own.

One of the largest tents in the enclosure was set aside for Harry and his companions. It contained a dais-bed, covered with grass matting, an immense grass-stuffed pillow, and mats on the floor besides.

He had not been long in this tent ere an unarmed amazon entered, bearing a huge leafen basket, laden with the most delicious fruit, the perfume of which filled the whole room. She also brought and placed near it a huge pitcher of water.

This was all very gratifying, and Harry began to wonder where this strange king learned all his civility and hospitality, and he really felt a little sorry now that he had taken the liberty of smacking his majesty on the fingers when he was attempting to cut off a button.

“How, on the other hand,” he asked himself, “have this curious people escaped the raids and ravages of the plundering slaver Arabs?”

Perhaps the Arabs had not yet found them out, or, having found them out, deemed it impossible to attack them, so well protected were they by water.

Nothing was done to-day by Harry except to wander about all over this lovely island.

Indeed, the adjective “lovely” but poorly expresses the wealth and beauty of flower and foliage that met his gaze at every turn.

It seemed a veritable garden of Eden. It must have been miles in extent, yet the king assured him he might wander everywhere, and he would find neither wild beast nor loathsome dangerous reptile.

His majesty went to his tent and did not appear again that day, nor was he visible until late into the next.

Harry was walking about making friends with the cocks and hens, the goats and the pigs, and with several charmingly plumaged birds of the guinea-hen species, when he was summoned into the king’s presence.

The dusky monarch was seated in the middle of his tent on a mat. So black was he, and so dark was the hut, that, coming right in from the glare of the noonday sun, it was some time before Harry could see him or anything else. He heard the king’s hearty laugh, however, and went towards it.

He was beckoned to a mat on the floor, and fruit was handed to him.

Then the royal host began to show all the inquisitiveness of a child, and evinced so much curiosity that Harry could not answer his questions fast enough. But he delighted him greatly by saying that at home he too lived on an island.

The king was exceedingly tickled, though, when told through Raggy that we were subjects to a queen.

He laughed so immoderately that he was obliged to lie back and roll on his mat, and for quite three minutes could say nothing but “Lobo! Lobo! Lobo!”

In the midst of all this pleasant discourse two amazons entered, and helped the king to rise.

He said something which Raggy translated, “Come on for true.”

They went on “for true,” and soon found themselves in a grove and under a canopy of grass-cloth. On the green-sward they all squatted down to a banquet, the like of which Harry had not seen for many days.

It was not served on china, you may be sure, and there were no forks, only knives. The plates were of yellow-brown clay, and as soft as a brick. In the centre was a huge dish of curried rice; before each of his guests was placed a curried fowl. Then there were floury and well-cooked yams, sweet potatoes and plantains, and a large chattee of water.

Raggy ate up his fowl every bit, so did Somali Jack. Harry failed on his last drumstick, and the king laughed again, and cried, “Lobo! Lobo!”

Then there was more wandering about the island, and another banquet or fried fish and fruit on their return.

All the time Harry and Jack stuck to their rifles. One never knows what savages may turn out to be, and had anything occurred they were determined to sell their lives as dearly as possible.

Next day, and next, and next, were simply repetitions of the first, with this difference—that the king took his guests round his islands in his barge, rowed now by five dark-skinned boatmen on each side, and this will give you some idea of the size of it.

Every evening after supper, sitting out under the stars, the king being only dimly visible as a kind of shape, Harry had to tell stories of all the kings and potentates and countries in the world.

He got a little tired at last, and found it better and easier to invent tales of imagination, based upon the stories he had read, such as the novels of Cooper and Walter Scott, than to stick to plain geography and pure history. This pleased this strange king even better, and he was constantly saying, “Lobo!” during Harry’s recitals.

I dare say, however, that Raggy, through whom, as a medium, the stories had to pass, embellished them somewhat on his own account.

Among the gifts from Somali Jack’s packet that Harry presented to his majesty was a shirt and a pair of pyjamas. These he wore until they were black, albeit Harry had several times suggested that they should be washed.

A whole month flew by. Very quickly indeed the days went too, for the air made Harry lazy, and he felt as if he had eaten the lotus leaf. He roused himself at last, and, fearful that he might be outstaying his welcome, he told the king he must go.

“Go! did you not come here to stay and talk to me for ever and ever? Go! No, no! Lobo! Lobo!”

It began gradually to dawn upon Harry that he really and virtually was a prisoner in these friendly islands. He certainly could not leave them without his majesty’s permission. To steal a boat and try to escape was out of the question, the amazons with the rolling eyes would effectually prevent this.

So he stayed on quietly another month. Then, firm in the belief that a constant drop will wear away a stone, he began persistently to tease the king into letting him go on his journey.

The king would promise one day, and retract the next.

Three months passed away, then four. Harry was getting desperate. At the risk of giving mortal offence he refused to tell any more stories. And his majesty got so sad and morose that he felt grieved to see him.

“I will let you go,” he said at length, “if you will promise to return and bring me more gifts.”

Harry gladly promised that he would do everything in his power to come back that way.

The king had most minutely examined the rifles, but hitherto not a shot had been fired. Ammunition was far too valuable.

But one day Harry determined to give the king a treat. He took his rifle, and pointing to a great vulture that was slowly floating around the village, fired, and to his own surprise brought it down.

But the consternation among the natives was intense. It was a strange, superstitious dread, and if they could have turned pale with fear I feel sure they would have done so. Harry had made thunder and lightning, smoke and flame, and killed an evil bird. No wonder the king capsized on his back on the mat, and said “Lobo!” more than a dozen times!

But Harry explained everything to him, and his majesty was satisfied.

The day before Harry’s departure from the Lake of the Hundred Isles was devoted to feasting and dancing. The king even proposed killing one or two of his subjects in honour of the occasion.

Harry would not hear of this.

“Well,” the king said, “he would put them up at a distance, and his guest should bring them down, with his rifle.”

“No, no, no,” laughed Harry; “kill hens and we can eat them, but not human beings.”

It was such a drowsy island this that Harry never thought of turning out of bed till about eight o’clock.

When he got up next day, and went forth to breathe the balmy morning air, the sight that was presented to him made him open his eyes wide with astonishment. It was like a scene of enchantment.

The king’s hut, and every other hut, and even the palisade around this camp, was completely covered with flowers of the most gorgeous hues and sweetest perfume, while all the ground was deeply bedded with green leaves and boughs. Even the shields and spears of the amazons were decorated with flowers, and they wore garlands around their necks and heads. Near the king’s tent sat a few musicians, beating low on tom-toms, and singing a dreamy kind of a chant.

It was late before the king put in an appearance; he did so at last, however, and very pleased he seemed when he gazed about him. Then his eye sought Harry’s; he was anxious to know if he was also pleased with—

The Feast of Flowers.

Harry hastened to assure him that he was more than pleased, he was delighted.

Would the queen of his country be pleased if she were here? That was his next question, and he laughed as he put it till his sides shook again. The answer was, “Undoubtedly.”

I do not intend to give a complete description of all the performances of the day—they were far too numerous. Suffice it to say that there was a grand procession of warriors, headed by the flower-bedecked amazons; after the soldiers came the king’s butchers or executioners; and next a crew of naked natives, bearing a pig, a goat, and several cocks and hens for the slaughter. The goat looked rather astonished and kicked a little at times; the cocks looked boldly unconcerned; but the pig was a lusty one, he was not content with kicking and biting, but he screamed so loudly that the sound, or bleating one might call it, of the chanters was hardly heard. All this, accompanied by the beating of tom-toms and the occasional unearthly yells of the amazons, made up a concert that it is far beyond my powers of description to give the reader any correct notion of.

The animals were slain. The amazons danced around the hole into which the creatures’ blood had been poured, frequently dipping their fingers therein and besmearing their faces, which certainly did not improve their grim beauty.

Then the procession returned to the king’s enclosure, and more wild dancing was carried on, much to the delectation of his majesty.

Suddenly he wheeled round to the mat where Harry and Raggy were squatted.

“Can you dance?” said the king. “Yes, you must dance.”

When Raggy translated his majesty’s words Harry could not keep from laughing aloud.

The idea, he thought, of his leading one of those bloody-faced amazons through a mazy dance, or of his dancing in her majesty’s uniform to please a savage king!

“No,” he said, “he could not dance; but Raggy would.”

Raggy whispered something to his master, and the reply was—

“So you have, Raggy; I had quite forgotten. Go and fetch it.”

Raggy was back in less than a minute with a German concertina, which he had looted from Mahmoud, and which had been intended for King ’Ngaloo.

The effect of Harry’s playing on this instrument was magical. There was a half-frightened silence at first, succeeded by murmurs of delight.

“Lobo! Lobo!! Lobo!!!” cried the king, emphatically, and when Harry finished he smoothed the back of his hand with one finger, as if he had been a pet rat, and Harry could have sworn he saw tears in the poor man’s eyes.

“Now, Raggy,” cried Harry, striking into a hornpipe, “now for your breakdown.”

Raggy required no second bidding, and I am sure no stage nigger ever could have gone through one half the capers Raggy did, in that wonderful breakdown of his.

During the dance the king’s face was something to behold and wonder at, his excitement was intense, and when Raggy finished he had simply to begin again. So it was “encore” and “encore” till the poor boy fairly sank on the ground panting from exertion, and the king shouted “Lobo! Lobo! Lobo! Lobo!”

To change the programme, Harry commenced to sing “Rule Britannia,” and somewhat to his surprise, while the king beat time with his hand on his knee, several of the amazons joined the chorus and actually followed the tune.

The amazons after this took chains of flowers and threw over Harry’s head till he was nearly choked.

The concert ended at last and feasting began, and after this the king was led away and deposited on a couch of leaves and flowers, and at once went off to sleep.

“And no wonder,” said Harry to himself, “for he has picked the bones of a couple of fowls, and eaten nearly half a goat.”

Next morning his majesty was up betimes, and as bright as a lark.

He was full of business. There was Harry’s boat to get ready, and also his own, for he meant to send his guest away in state.

“Ask or me anything,” he said to Harry, “and I will give it if you promise to return.”

“I will assuredly return,” replied Harry, “if the Great Father spares me.”

“And now, when I think of it, I shall be for ever grateful to you for your hospitality. Will you add to it by lending me two of your people to help me as carriers on my march?”

The answer was made in the following way. The king ran rapidly along the ranks of his amazons, and dragged out two of the sturdiest, whom he almost flung into Harry’s arms.

Harry stepped back laughing.

“Oh, no, your majesty,” he said, “not the ladies, please.”

“Lobo! Lobo!” said his majesty.

The boat in which Harry and his companions embarked for the distant eastern shore, was bedded with beautiful flowers, and when he bade the king goodbye on the shore he took away with him three sturdy islanders to act as guides, and to help to carry his guns and packages.

These last contained a supply of rice sufficient to last the little expedition for many months.

When he reached the hill-top and looked back, lo! there on the beach still stood the honest king. Once more adieus were waved; then Harry and his people went down over the mountain side, and bore away to the West.

It was when in bivouac that night, halfway up a hill, with the moon and stars shining in a clear blue sky and brilliantly reflected in a little lake down beneath, that Harry remembered that all the time he had been a guest of the island king, he had never spoken to either him or his people of the good tidings of the Gospel.

He felt his face burn red as he thought of his neglect. But he vowed to himself that if spared to return he would try to make amends for such thoughtlessness.

“You should sow good seed when you can,” something seemed to whisper to Harry; “the ground may be rough, the soil may be hard, but good seed often makes good soil for itself.”

Book Four—Chapter One.

On the War Path.

Adventure with a Python—The Unwholesome Fen—The Village of the Dismal Swamp—The Man-Eater.

Not only as guides and carriers, but in a variety of other ways did Harry find his new men useful. They were undoubtedly honest, they were just as undoubtedly brave, and last, but not least, they were willing.

Well, they were servants and subjects of the island king, and depend upon it a good master always makes a good servant.

It was but two men that Harry desired to have lent to him, but his majesty insisted on sending three, wisely observing that while the two could carry the packages, the other could act as guide and scout.

At the time, then, that the last “act” in this tale of ours opens, Harry had already been three months on the road.

Three months only? Why it seemed like three years, so filled had the days been with toil and adventure. No wonder that Harry felt a man when he looked back to all he had come through. He had seen many strange sights, and been among many strange tribes and peoples, and yet he could have told you truthfully that he had not as yet made an enemy. To do so needs that wonderful skill and judgment, tact and calmness of mind, which only men like Stanley and Cameron possess.

My own impression is that one is more safe among the really unsophisticated tribes of the far interior, than among those that lie more near the coast, and who have been leavened with a modicum of civilisation—and mayhap a modicum of rum. I would rather trust myself among savages who had never seen a white man before, than among the Somali Indians to the north of the line—whose tricks and manners, by the way, I have good cause to remember.

Harry inquired the names of his islanders, but found they were so difficult to pronounce, unless he tried to swallow his tongue, and screwed his mouth out of all shape, that he determined to give them English ones, so he called them Walter—the scout—and Bob and Bill—the carriers. But in the mouths of these Indians Walter became “Walda,” Bob became “Popa,” and Bill became “Peela;” so let them stand: Walda, Popa, and Peela.

They were so much alike that it was quite a long time before Harry could tell the one from the other—tell Popa from Peela, I mean.

As for Walda, though he was quite as tall, quite as straight, and every bit as jetty black as his companions, his teeth had been filed into triangles, and stained crimson by some mysterious means or other, and as he was always on the grin there was no mistaking him.

Walda had a wondrous way of his own of making his peace with native tribes. He seemed to know the whole country well, and used to run on miles in front of the company, and by the time Harry got up it was no uncommon thing to find everything prepared and ready, and even a rude tent made for the white man’s reception.

So that life became now a deal easier for our hero.

Poor Walda, though, had one day a narrow escape from a most terrible death.

It was well for him that Harry and the rest of his people were near to save him.

I cannot tell you whether or not the python or marsh boa of Central Africa is a spiteful reptile, for I have never seen but one, and he made no attempt to attack me, although I stood not twenty yards away. I cannot believe all the fearful tales I have read and been told about the creature, of its enormous length—sometimes sixty feet—of its power to swallow a small bullock, and of its chasing travellers till they heard its panting behind them, and felt its fulsome breath beating warm between their shoulders. This would surely be more fearsome than any nightmare. It puts one in mind of the words of the immortal Coleridge—

“Like one that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And having once turned round, walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread.”

Walda was only a little way ahead of the rest on the day he was attacked by the python. Nor was it of very large size, else would I not have Walda’s adventures to write.

The guide was near a tree when suddenly, with a loud hiss, the monster sprang upon him. It seized the unfortunate man by the naked shoulder with its fangs, and, twisting its tail round a tree, commenced to roll Walda up in its coils.

His companions dropped their burdens and rushed to his rescue.

None too soon. Yet the attack and relief both together could hardly have occupied more than twenty seconds. It was evident from the quickness with which Peela and Popa commenced untwisting the coils from the tree, that they had been actors in a scene like this before. They at the same time hacked at the tail with their knives.

Meanwhile Harry had run his sword-bayonet, which luckily was fixed to the end of the rifle, through the boa constrictor’s body. Its folds were instantly released, and Walda fell forward insensible, only to be speedily dragged away by Somali Jack.

It was time for all to run now, to escape the lashings and writhings of the monster. It coiled round the tree, and uncoiled again. It lay for moments dormant, then sprang high in air.

Harry now took steady aim with his rifle and shot it through the neck, close to the head, and soon after it expired.

In journeying on and on, ever towards the west, Harry and his people had met with many a wild beast; sometimes, indeed, they were far too close to lions to feel quite at home with their position. Very few, however, fell to the guns, for the simplest of all reasons, they only fired when really obliged to.

They found themselves one day on a hill-top, overlooking a vast stretch of level country that extended towards the then setting sun as far as the eye could reach.

In some places it seemed bare and sandy, while in others there were clumps of forest trees, but for the most part it was treeless. Here and there little lakes of water glittered in the sun’s parting rays, and looked like pools of blood.

It was an eerisome and ugly-looking district to cross, and Harry looked north and south in the hope of seeing hills which he might reach, and thus make a détour and avoid it. He consulted Walda on the subject.

But Walda shook his head.

“No, no,” he said; “no way round. Must cross.”

They entered on this dismal swamp early next morning.

It appeared like going down into a black and dreary ocean, and Harry could not help a feeling of hopelessness and melancholy stealing over him before he had walked for an hour, and the farther on he went the more gloomy and depressed in spirits did he become.

Perhaps this was the effects of breathing the tainted and unwholesome air.

“Why am I toiling and moiling here,” he asked himself peevishly, again and again, “when I might be far away and happy? This is no pleasure,” he said, half aloud; “better by far I were dead.”

Then he remembered he had a duty to perform—that of endeavouring to find out and rescue his poor men.

But was he doing it? No, he was only bent on his own pleasure and enjoyment. Enjoyment indeed! He was a fool for his pains, and a great sinner besides. What were his parents doing all this weary time? The Bunting must be home long ago. And he would have been given up for lost. They must have thought the dhow foundered at sea, or been lost among the breakers and every one drowned. Well, then, if he was given up for lost, the bitterness of his mother’s grief must already be nearly assuaged. What mattered a year or two more of wandering? He would wander. He would find his men or perish in the attempt. So ran his thoughts.

And thus moodily, and half angrily, did Harry muse as he marched over the dismal waste at the heels of his faithful guide Walda.

It was not easy walking here either; there were darksome murky pools to go round, and brown unwholesome streams to wade through.

Nothing could have been more depressing than the view around him, look where he would.

As far as wild beasts were concerned, the dismal swamp was untenanted. Here were no lordly elephants, no sturdy rhinoceroses, no giraffes towering in their strength, nor deer, nor gnu, nor hartbeeste, nor the herds of swift-footed ambling zebras they had been so used to behold.

But in the great pools, and in the sluggish mud-stained streams, wallowed crocodiles more large and loathsome than Harry could have imagined even in his dreams, while often several of these at one time could be seen on the banks huddled together asleep or basking in the sunshine.

They walked onwards as fast as they could, hardly pausing to eat, but there seemed no end to the horrible fen. It seemed to Harry as if he was bound to go on, and still go on, but never come to anything.

The sun began to set at last, glaring purple through a watery-looking sky.

There was nothing for it but sleep in the swamp till another day dawned. Harry and his men now sought the shelter of a clump of stunted trees which they reached after some difficulty.

While daylight lasted they were careful to beat the bush well before they thought of lighting the camp-fire, for close under the trees in places like this the giant anaconda or python often lies coiled up till roused to fury by the presence of man or other animals.

The sun went down, and gloaming and gloom settled down over the marsh. The very stars seemed to give a feebler light than was their wont, for their rays were shorn by a rising haze.

It took quite a long time to-night to light the camp-fire, for the materials had got damp.

The process of making fire is very simple to appearance, but requires no little skill; it is, however, common among nearly all savage nations, and my readers may, if they please, try their hands at it. Suppose yourself a savage and have another savage to assist you. Well, you are possessed of a round piece of hard dry wood about the length but not nearly so thick as an ebony ruler, it is tapered to a point at one end. Your companion savage sits in front of you holding firmly a bit of softer wood, flat at the bottom for steadiness’ sake, and with a little hole in the top. Into this hole you insert the point of your hard wood drill, then you have only to roll it rapidly back and fore between your two palms, till sparks are emitted and smoke, then fanning or blowing with your breath, and partially surrounding the hole with dried meadow grass, or anything that will catch easily, will do the rest. If you try it, I hope you will be successful; I myself lack two important essentials to success—patience and dexterity.

But Jack and the guide “made fire” at last, and supper was cooked and eaten.

During the time it was being got ready Harry had taken a little walk in the dim starlight. He did not go far, for he soon got into a miry place. Here he almost trampled upon a gigantic eel creature—it could hardly have been a snake—it was slowly dragging its body through the slime.

While he was looking at it there was the sound of wings in the sky right above him. It was a great vulture of some kind: birds of this kind are scarcely ever a mile distant from a party of African travellers, and have the lion’s share of all that is killed. The flapping of wings was very loud and accompanied by a rustling noise; so close overhead was it that he could hear it breathe hoarsely—so at least he thought. But hardly had he turned away ere the great bird swooped down, and next moment it had re-ascended carrying the great eel with it. Seeing the latter, though but for a moment, wriggling in the talons of the unclean bird was quite enough for Harry. He walked no farther that way, but speedily returned to the camp.

The fire and his supper rendered him a shade more comfortable; his people went into the wood to collect dry material to make their master a bed. They beat the grass first with their spears before they ventured to put their hands down, for several deadly-looking, triangular-headed snakes had been seen before sunset, rustling through the undergrowth or hanging to the branches of the trees.

Harry lay down at last, but he slept but little. How could he in such a place, with the horrid bellowing of crocodiles ever and anon rising on the night air, the intervals being filled up with the continuous hoarse snoring of some creatures in the marsh, probably gigantic frogs! (Dactylathrae.)

Next morning there was no chance of proceeding so early as they had wished, for all the swamp was enveloped in a dark grey fog or mist, and it was nearly noon before the sun had succeeded in dispelling it.

On they journeyed now, happy to be able to start at last, for Harry shuddered to think what the consequences would be if the mist did not lift for days.

They had not gone above five miles ere a village came into view.

Harry made Raggy ask the guide why he had not mentioned the existence of this town.

The guide only shook his head and said—

“No good—no good.”

The place was built among trees, palms there were of many strange kinds, and an undergrowth of broad-leaved plantains and gigantic feathery ferns, but some of the trees were so weirdly fantastic in shape that in his present depressed state of mind they pained Harry to look at.

The ground here was somewhat higher, but it certainly was no oasis in a desert.

If Harry expected his spirits to rise on entering this village he was soon undeceived. It was the abode par excellence of gloom and misery.

The leaf-built huts were mere kennels, the people themselves were black, naked, decrepit, and puny, and the very children were paunchy and old-looking.

Not a sign of welcome did they make, not the slightest show of resistance; they but gazed on the expedition as it passed along with the lack-lustre eyes of chronic apathy.

It was evident that here was a tribe or people slowly but surely dying off the face of the earth. Harry soon found that they were cannibals, and that they actually ate their dead. They had no king, no law, no order; they were socialists, nihilists, and soon, doubtless, to be annihilated.

Harry sought out an open space under the shelter of a splendid spreading tree.

This tree was really a thing of beauty. It was larger than any oak, and its branches were literally bathed in the beauty of trailing flowers, while colonies of bees and birds made sweet soft music in its foliage. Harry thought if he was a bird, it would not be anywhere near this village he would build his nest and make his home.

Presently a native or two came round and stood up to stare, and after a time one with more alacrity than the rest brought some squash-apples and a chattee of beautiful honey.

There was something human after all even in this degraded race. Harry did not care to eat honey from the hands of a cannibal, so he gave it to his people.

The intelligent native soon squatted down beside Raggy, and from his rolling eyes and woebegone face it was evident he was telling the boy a dismal story.

“What is it, Raggy?” said Harry.

“Ebery night, sah, it is de same,” replied Raggy. “He come now foh more’n tree week, and ebery night he take somebody.”

“What are you driving at, boy?”

“De lion, sa! De lion what come here ebery night, gobble up some poor soul, den smack his lips and go away back to de jungle.”

Now though much against his inclination, Harry had not the heart to go away and leave this wretched tribe to the mercy of a relentless man-eater.

This lion was evidently some very old and wily king of the forest, too old to stalk bigger game. In this village he had “struck oil,” as the Yankees say, and was making the very best of it.

Harry determined to “spoil his game.”

All day he wandered about this swamp-island, wondering at the beauty of the flowers and the richness of their perfume, and admiring the many strange birds and their nests.

When night began to fall he prepared to watch for the foe.

The lion invariably walked on to the stage at the same spot. When shown this, to his horror he found a poor boy there tied to a stake, agony depicted in his staring eyes, and the sweat standing in beads on his brow and draggling his curly hair.

The poor lad was a sop for Cerberus, and every night it seemed to be the custom thus to sacrifice one poor victim to save others in the village. Whether they drew lots for it, or how it was arranged, Harry could not find out.

There was little fog here to-night, but it lay low down all over the marsh, which thus looked like one vast sheet of water glimmering in the starlight. Harry lay in concealment behind a tree, the two rifles loaded and ready, with Jack, Raggy, and the guide spear-armed and not far off.

He had released the boy, who looked quite bewildered on first gaining his freedom, but soon regained his presence of mind, and went off scampering and shouting into the village.

Hours and hours passed by.

Harry was often startled by noises above him, and looking up saw gigantic bats flitting from tree to tree.

Would the lion never come?

Hark! a footstep deep down in the marsh; soft though it was, it could be heard distinctly enough creeping nearer and nearer, pausing often as if to listen, then coming on and on again through the rustling grass.

At last he is in sight.

A monster white-muzzled he-lion.

For a moment he stands ’twixt Harry and the starlight.

Our hero’s hand is shaking. All his nerves are a-quiver, for truth is he is far from well, and the night air is damp and chilly.

Will he miss? The starlight is confusing.

He takes steady aim and fires.

The lion stands erect roaring, maddened with pain.

Quick as a thought Harry seizes the other rifle, and while the lion is still half erect fires again, and the man-eater staggers forward, falling first on his knees, then on his nose, and there remaining—dead.

Harry was a god now in the eyes of these poor people.

In the midst of a large clearing in this swamp-island stood a strange forked, withered tree. Up in this tree a fire was built and lit. Into the open space the dead lion was dragged, and with many an eldritch shout and scream, for hours and hours these savages danced round the dead lion, and the fire that burned in the tree-top.

But Harry was glad when morning came, and happy indeed when next evening he found himself once more among the tree-clad mountains with the marsh far in the rear.

When he lay down to sleep that night he tried to think of the lake with its hundred isles, and of the feast of flowers, but even in his dreams he was haunted by the scenes he had recently passed through, and—

The Village in the Dismal Swamp.

Book Four—Chapter Two.

Weary Wanderings—Prisoner in a Savage Land—The Escape by Night—Down with Fever in the Marsh.

Nearly a whole year has passed away since the events described in last chapter, and the wayward, wandering Harry has seen many strange sights, had many a wild adventure, and been among many strange tribes and peoples.

He would hardly have travelled so far, he would have returned much sooner towards the east had he not been following up a will-o’-the-wisp. For again and again he was told by natives with whom he came in contact of white men who were held captive by kings of tribes, sometimes it would be to the north, at other times to the south or to the west.

He hoped against hope, and never failed to hunt up these tribes, but disappointment had always been his lot.

So, tired and disheartened at last, he had determined to return, and to strike once more for the lake of the hundred isles.

This returning, however, was not such an easy matter as he had anticipated. For in journeying westwards he found the chiefs with whom he came in contact not unwilling to let him go onwards because he assured them he was coming back. This, and gifts of buttons, etc, procured him liberty to advance, though several times he had to fall back on his rifle, and usually succeeded in scaring warlike chieftains out of their wits.

But on his way back every effort was made to detain him as a slave till he should die, or, as the kings phrased it, “for ever and for ever.”

All this resulted in very slow progress indeed in his backward journey, and constituted a far greater danger than even that from wild beasts.

As an instance of how quickly an African chief can change his tactics, I may tell you of a really warlike tribe whom Harry encountered, who dwelt among the hills in the middle of a vast forest land.

At first the chief of this clan hardly knew how kind to be to Harry and his people. He fêted them and feasted them, brought presents of roasted goat-flesh, of honey, fruit, and of cocoanut beer. Harry much preferred the feasts to the fêtes, for these hardly ever passed without a human sacrifice. He could not tell whether the victims were political offenders or not.

However that may be, had the doomed wretches been simply beheaded it would not have been so awful, but they were first tortured.

In one instance a living chain was made by tying seven unhappy beings head to heels. The tallest branch of a kind of lithe poplar tree was then by great force bent to the ground. To this the living, writhing chain was attached; the branch was then let suddenly free, and up the victims swung.

It is to be hoped they did not suffer long, but they appeared to.

I would not horrify my young readers by describing the orgies that took place at some of those dreadful fêtes. The little I have said will surely suffice to make them thank God they are born in a favoured land, and to pray the Father to hasten the time when the dark continent shall be opened up to commerce, and all such dreadful scenes become things of the gloomy past.

But this chief, when he found that Harry was determined to go, turned his back upon him, and went and shut himself up for a whole day in his tent.

The wanderer well knew what this meant. He knew the chief would send for him next day and give him an ultimatum, and on his refusing compliance therewith would at once slay his followers and put Harry in chains.

But Harry determined to take time by the forelock, and to escape that very evening.

He communicated his intentions to his people, and all were ready. No one slept, though all pretended to.

The night was very dark; a storm was brewing; the sky was covered with a deep, solid canopy of slowly moving clouds, but never a star was visible.

About midnight, when all was still in the camp, Harry arose and touched his men. They knew the signal. He then crawled to the back of the tent and with his knife cut a hole in it and crept out. On their hands and their knees they glided along till they came to the palisade, which they proceeded to mount one by one.

Here lay the greatest danger, and this was soon apparent enough, for the last man stumbled, and slight though the sound he made was, it was quite sufficient to awake the whole camp.

As the fugitives bounded away to the forest Harry thanked Heaven for the darkness of that dismal night.

They could soon hear the yells of the foe as they pressed onwards in pursuit.

They would reach the shelter of the trees in another minute, but one dark form was before all the rest, and was nearing on the guide when Harry fired.

It was a random shot, but the savage fell: the first man that Harry had killed in Africa, and he felt grieved, but still it was in self-defence.

They found themselves in a ravine, and crossed the stream at a place where, from the noise it made among the stones, they could tell it was not deep.

Now the road lay along this glen—such road as it was—but the fugitives went straight on up the mountain side. The hills here were fully three thousand feet high, but they reached the top at last, and felt safe, for far down beneath them, but well up the glen, they heard the shouts of the chief’s people and knew they were off the scent. Then the storm came on, and such a storm! From hill to hill and from rock to rock the thunder rattled and reverberated, while as for the lightning the whole world seemed to be on fire.

Down below them in the forest the scene was singularly grand, for by the light of the flashes they could see each moment the giant tree-tops stand out as clear and distinctly as at midday. Anon they would find themselves blinded or dazzled for a moment, everything about them being either a dark bright blue, dotted with sparks, or a blood-red or crimson.

The very hills on which they stood appeared to shake beneath their feet.

Then came the rain; it descended in streams, and made every one shiver, so ice-cold was it.

But in less than an hour this strange but fearful storm had passed away on the wings of a moaning wind, and the stars shone forth.

They found a cave in which to rest that night, and next day continued the journey through the forest.

To his change of raiment, despite the modest demands of many a savage chief or king, Harry had resolutely stuck, so he did not suffer from the drenching.

Yes, he had a change of raiment, but not one single button or inch of gold lace on his uniform jackets.

Both buttons and lace had long since been gifted away.

About this stage of his wanderings Harry was as tough in muscle as if he had been made of guttapercha, while his hands and face were of a colour somewhat between brick-dust and bronze.

Another month found the little band back once more in the village of the dismal swamp.

The poor creatures there seemed, if anything, glad to see them. On making inquiry, it was found that no more lions had sought to molest them since the man-eater had been shot.

Harry rested here a night, resolving to push on next day, and by a forced march get quite clear of the marsh.

But lo! next day not only the swamp but the village itself was enveloped in a dark, wet mist, and the day wore away without the sun once appearing.

“No good, no good,” was the answer of the guide to Harry’s repeated queries whether it was not possible to make straight headway in spite of the fog.

“No good, no good.”

And the next day showed no improvement nor the next week even.

The outlook was now very dreary indeed.

To make matters worse, the hopelessness of his situation brought a prostration of mind and body, and the hardships and privations he had undergone in his wanderings began to tell upon Harry.

Besides, there was the dread marsh miasma to be breathed day after day, while the very appearance and dejectedness of the people he found himself among was not calculated to mend matters. He found himself growing ill, he struggled against it with all the force of his mind. But alas! a struggle of this kind is like that of floundering in a miry bog—the more you struggle the deeper you sink.

One morning, after a restless night of pained and dreamful slumber, Harry found himself unable to rise from his couch of grass under the flower-clad, creeper-hung baobab tree.

He was sick at heart, racked with pain in every limb, and oh, so cold.

The cold was worse to bear than anything, yet his pulse was bounding along, his skin was hot, and his brow was burning.

Before night he was delirious—dreaming of home, raving in his waking moments about his father, his mother, about Andrew, and Eily, the forest of Balbuie, and the far-off Highland hills.

No nurse could have been kinder to Harry than Somali Jack, no one more attentive than he and Raggy.

Even in this strange swamp-island Jack managed to find herbs, and exercised all his native skill to bring his patient round.

But nights went by, and days that were like nights to Harry, and he grew worse and worse.

At last even Somali Jack gave up all hope.

“Master will never speak again. Master will never shoot and never fight again,” he said, mournfully, “till he shoots and fights in the land beyond the clouds.”

Jack sat down and gazed long and intently at Harry, whose jaw had dropped, and whose breath came in long-drawn sighs or sobs.

He lay on his back, his knees half drawn up, and his hands extended on the grass.

For a long, long time Somali Jack sat looking mournfully at his master; then he seemed to lose all control of himself: he threw out his arms, fell down on his face on the ground, and sobbed as though his heart were breaking.

Book Four—Chapter Three.

Back Again at the Hundred Isles—The King as a Nurse—Harry Tells the Story of the World—News of the “Bunting’s” Men—Preparing for the War-Path.

But the worst was past, and the fever had spent itself before the dawn of another day; even the terrible marsh miasmata had been repelled by the strength and resiliency of Harry’s constitution.

He was weak now, very. But he was sensible and able to swallow a little honey and milk, that Jack had culled and drawn with his own hands.

And that day, lo! the sun again shone out, the birds that had been mute for weeks once more remembered their low but beautiful songs, and surely in this swamp-island never did the wealth of flowers that grew everywhere put forth a more dazzling show. Twisted and pinched they had been while the dank fog hung over them, but now they opened in all their wild wanton glory, and vied with each other in the brightness of their colours, their vivid blues, whites, pinks, and crimsons, and velvety sulphurs, and chocolate browns.

They grew up over the trees, borne aloft on climbing stems, they canopied the bushes, they carpeted the ground, and hung their charming festoons round the fruit itself.

But yet in spite of all this wealth of beauty Harry longed to be off, and almost the first words he spoke, though in a voice but little louder than a whisper, were—

“Take me away. Take me away out of here.”

Those words made Somali Jack and Raggy very happy, and even the other boys were rejoiced, for truth to tell, they all dearly loved their brave young master.

All that day Jack and his comrades were very busy indeed. They were making an ambulance hammock. When complete it was simplicity itself.