Venning tugged at the hunter"s arm. "Look," he whispered.
Muata was slipping down the post, as if his legs had utterly given way. The party of new-comers were stacking their arms at the "indaba" house at the end of the square, and the village people were talking, laughing, and eating. Muata reached the ground, but not in a state of collapse, for the next instant the two watchers saw him crawl to the shadow of a hut, where he remained as if stretching his limbs.
"Come," said Mr. Hume, in a fierce whisper, recovering from his surprise; and the two went swiftly to the river.
Compton had already cast off and was holding by the boat-hook.
"Bring her in."
The Okapi ran her stern into the bank, and the two stepped aboard, Mr. Hume going forward to the wheel, with his rifle in his hand.
"Shove her off; run as silently as you can out of hearing, and then work the levers."
Compton looked inquiringly at Venning as he picked up the oars, and then at the village, from which came a loud babble.
"Is he free already?"
Venning nodded.
"Good;" and then they bent themselves to the oars with every nerve on the quiver, and their eyes on the sh.o.r.e.
"Stop! Back-water!"
Obediently they stopped the way of the boat and backed her, wondering what had gone wrong. A turn of the wheel sent them in among the canoes. There was a flash of steel, a plunge of the strong arm down into the boats, accompanied by a ripping noise. Then the hunter waded ash.o.r.e, and with his great hunting-knife ripped up the boats lying on the bank. Quickly he was back at his place.
"Now, off!"
Again they pushed off, the boys with their excitement increasing after this interlude, which showed them the imminence of danger. A few long strokes took the Okapi well out; then she was put about with her nose up-stream.
"The levers now, my lads!"
They perched themselves on the saddle-seats, and at the clanking of the levers the beautiful craft slipped swiftly up-stream.
Then out of the dark there rose the mournful howl of a jackal, almost instantly replied to by a similar call at a distance.
"The chief calling to his jackal," said Mr. Hume. "Thank Heaven, he has got away. Now I will let him know we are also off;" and he, too, gave the jackal hunting-cry.
Back out of the darkness came the chief"s exultant war-cry, and on it a furious shout from the village, followed by the discharge of a rifle, and the rolling alarm of a war-drum. Then shone out the glare of torches at the river bank, and a savage yell announced that the men had discovered the injury done to the canoes.
One of the purchases made in London had been a lamp with very fine reflectors. This Mr. Hume fixed on a movable bracket within reach of his arm as he sat at the wheel, and when the lights at the village faded astern, he lit the lamp, in order to thread a pa.s.sage by its light through the dark waters. As the noise of shouting, the drumming, and the report of fire-arms died down, other sounds reached their strained hearing--the booming of the Congo bittern, the harsh roar of a bull crocodile, and the cries of water-birds.
Then Venning laughed--a little short nervous laugh. "We have done it," he said.
"We have, indeed," said Compton.
"But if we can only pick up Muata and his jackal, we should be all right. Just a nice party."
The rudder-chains clanked; the boat set up a heavy wash as she turned from her course. There was a splashing, and something snorted almost in Venning"s face.
"Nearly ran into a hippo!" sang out Mr. Hume. "We must keep out into mid-river; it"s too risky insh.o.r.e. Tell me when you are tired."
"We"re quite fresh yet," replied Compton. "It is easier than sculling."
"Moves like clockwork," said Venning, gaily. "I could keep on all night."
"We"ll have to keep on all night and all to-morrow," muttered Mr.
Hume; and in a few minutes he relieved Compton, making him put on a heavy coat before taking the wheel. "It"s the chill that is dangerous. In an hour you will relieve Venning."
Turn and turn the boys relieved each other at intervals, but Mr.
Hume sw.a.n.g to his lever till the dawn, when the mast was stepped, the sail spread, and the spirit-lamp got out for the making of coffee. After breakfast the awning was spread, the mosquito curtains stretched round, and the boys were ordered to sleep. They demurred at first, but the hunter rather sharply insisted, and no sooner were they stretched on the rugs than they were asleep. The yoke had been slipped over the rudder, and, using the lines, Mr. Hume sailed the Okapi single-handed, taking her across the lake-like width till he was under the wooded hills of the south bank, where he beat about for an hour or so in the hope that Muata might have covered the distance at the native"s trotting-pace. It was, he told himself, not likely, however, that the chief could have done so, after being for hours bound to a post; and after a time he beat out again into mid- stream afar off, so that no village natives should spy upon the craft. He did not share in the triumph of his young companions. Too well he knew that they had risked everything by their secret departure; but he could not see that any other course was open to them, as if they had remained it would have been difficult for them to prove that they were not concerned in Muata"s escape. He knew, too, that if he had abandoned the chief, as the price of security, the boys would have lost all faith in him.
What, however, he did feel was, that the responsibility rested on him. If a mistake had been made it was his mistake, and if the boys suffered from it the blame would be his.
So he beat out into mid-stream, where the sail of the low-lying craft would be but a speck when viewed from the sh.o.r.e, and with a beam wind laid her on a course which she kept almost dead straight, with a tack at long intervals only. In the shade of the awning the boys slept the dreamless sleep of the healthy, and he let them sleep on till the sun stood almost above the mast, sending down a blaze that scorched. Then he beached the Okapi on the shelving sh.o.r.e of a sand-spit, without vegetation of any kind to give shelter to mosquitoes, and awoke them.
"All hands to bathe!" he shouted; and the three of them were soon in, and no sooner in than out; for, according to the hunter, the virtue of a bathe was not in long immersion, but in friction. "With their heads well protected, but their bodies bare to the sun, the friction was obtained by rubbing handfuls of the dry, clean sand over limbs and body till the skin glowed.
"Now I will s.n.a.t.c.h a few winks while you work the levers, until the wind springs up again."
Mr. Hume stretched himself forward under the awning after unstopping the mast; and the two friends, after tossing a bucket of water over the canvas awning, took their seats, clad in pyjamas and body-belts only, and bent gaily to the levers which "click-clanked" merrily.
Their feet were naked, for Mr. Hume had taught the lesson that the feet should be cool and the head protected; their arms were bare to the elbow, of a fine mahogany hue; their movements were brisk; but the best evidence of health was in the clearness of their eyes.
Fever shows its touch in the "gooseberry" eye, dull and clouded; in the moist pallor of the skin, and in a general listlessness. Even if they are free from fever, white men in Central Africa often grow listless because of insufficient nutriment. Their flesh-diet is chiefly the white meat of birds, and their blood-cells are really starved by the small amount of nitrogenous matter. A deficient diet in its turn is a frequent cause of diarrhoea and constipation, two of the most common complaints among new chums. In his hunting expeditions Mr. Hume had learnt his lesson from experience, and he accordingly was a martinet on the rules of health. All the drinking- water was first boiled. The boys could wear as little as they liked during the heat of the day, so long as they protected their heads and necks, but on the approach of evening they had to get into warm and dry under-garments; they had to keep a sharp watch for the striped "anophele" mosquito, were taught to spray the puncture, if they were tapped by the mosquito lancet, with chloride of ethyl, and had to submit occasionally to a hypodermic injection of quinine. The nitrogen they got from condensed meat juices.
"This is very much more like what I expected," said Venning, looking from the broad river to the distant wooded banks, and from the dark forest to the blue sky.
"I can see two string of duck, a whole crowd of ibis on a little island, a crocodile and a hippo."
Compton, who was facing the stern, glanced over his shoulder, then directed his gaze aft again.
"We seem to be traveling slowly," he growled.
"There"s no hurry, is there?"
Compton raised his head a little, and looked under the shelter of a hand.
"They"re coming," he said briefly.
"Eh?" Venning stopped, and looked back. The water glimmered under the sun like a vast silver sheet. "I can see nothing."
"Don"t you see a dark smudge. Well, that is the smoke from a steamer. I thought at first it came from a land-fire. But it does not. Send her along."
Venning quickened up, and for some minutes pedals and levers worked at almost racing speed.
"We cannot keep this up. Give him a call!" Venning shouted, and Mr.
Hume looked round.
"Bid you call?"
"They are after us," and Venning jerked his head back, while still bending to his work.