"I can see it! They were pounced upon while they slept heavily after drinking all that palm wine you"ve allowed Makola to give them. A put-up job! See? The worst is, some of Gobila"s people were there, and got carried off too, no doubt. The least drunk woke up, and got shot for his sobriety. This is a funny country. What will you do now?"
"We can"t touch it, of course," said Kayerts.
"Of course not," a.s.sented Carlier.
"Slavery is an awful thing," stammered out Kayerts in an unsteady voice.
"Frightful--the sufferings," grunted Carlier with conviction.
They believed their words. Everybody shows a respectful deference to certain sounds that he and his fellows can make. But about feelings people really know nothing. We talk with indignation or enthusiasm; we talk about oppression, cruelty, crime, devotion, self-sacrifice, virtue, and we know nothing real beyond the words. n.o.body knows what suffering or sacrifice mean--except, perhaps the victims of the mysterious purpose of these illusions.
Next morning they saw Makola very busy setting up in the yard the big scales used for weighing ivory. By and by Carlier said: "What"s that filthy scoundrel up to?" and lounged out into the yard. Kayerts followed. They stood watching. Makola took no notice. When the balance was swung true, he tried to lift a tusk into the scale. It was too heavy. He looked up helplessly without a word, and for a minute they stood round that balance as mute and still as three statues. Suddenly Carlier said: "Catch hold of the other end, Makola--you beast!" and together they swung the tusk up. Kayerts trembled in every limb. He muttered, "I say! O! I say!" and putting his hand in his pocket found there a dirty bit of paper and the stump of a pencil. He turned his back on the others, as if about to do something tricky, and noted stealthily the weights which Carlier shouted out to him with unnecessary loudness.
When all was over Makola whispered to himself: "The sun"s very strong here for the tusks." Carlier said to Kayerts in a careless tone: "I say, chief, I might just as well give him a lift with this lot into the store."
As they were going back to the house Kayerts observed with a sigh: "It had to be done." And Carlier said: "It"s deplorable, but, the men being Company"s men the ivory is Company"s ivory. We must look after it." "I will report to the Director, of course," said Kayerts. "Of course; let him decide," approved Carlier.
At midday they made a hearty meal. Kayerts sighed from time to time.
Whenever they mentioned Makola"s name they always added to it an opprobrious epithet. It eased their conscience. Makola gave himself a half-holiday, and bathed his children in the river. No one from Gobila"s villages came near the station that day. No one came the next day, and the next, nor for a whole week. Gobila"s people might have been dead and buried for any sign of life they gave. But they were only mourning for those they had lost by the witchcraft of white men, who had brought wicked people into their country. The wicked people were gone, but fear remained. Fear always remains. A man may destroy everything within himself, love and hate and belief, and even doubt; but as long as he clings to life he cannot destroy fear: the fear, subtle, indestructible, and terrible, that pervades his being; that tinges his thoughts; that lurks in his heart; that watches on his lips the struggle of his last breath. In his fear, the mild old Gobila offered extra human sacrifices to all the Evil Spirits that had taken possession of his white friends.
His heart was heavy. Some warriors spoke about burning and killing, but the cautious old savage dissuaded them. Who could foresee the woe those mysterious creatures, if irritated, might bring? They should be left alone. Perhaps in time they would disappear into the earth as the first one had disappeared. His people must keep away from them, and hope for the best.
Kayerts and Carlier did not disappear, but remained above on this earth, that, somehow, they fancied had become bigger and very empty. It was not the absolute and dumb solitude of the post that impressed them so much as an inarticulate feeling that something from within them was gone, something that worked for their safety, and had kept the wilderness from interfering with their hearts. The images of home; the memory of people like them, of men that thought and felt as they used to think and feel, receded into distances made indistinct by the glare of unclouded sunshine. And out of the great silence of the surrounding wilderness, its very hopelessness and savagery seemed to approach them nearer, to draw them gently, to look upon them, to envelop them with a solicitude irresistible, familiar, and disgusting.
Days lengthened into weeks, then into months. Gobila"s people drummed and yelled to every new moon, as of yore, but kept away from the station. Makola and Carlier tried once in a canoe to open communications, but were received with a shower of arrows, and had to fly back to the station for dear life. That attempt set the country up and down the river into an uproar that could be very distinctly heard for days. The steamer was late. At first they spoke of delay jauntily, then anxiously, then gloomily. The matter was becoming serious. Stores were running short. Carlier cast his lines off the bank, but the river was low, and the fish kept out in the stream. They dared not stroll far away from the station to shoot. Moreover, there was no game in the impenetrable forest. Once Carlier shot a hippo in the river. They had no boat to secure it, and it sank. When it floated up it drifted away, and Gobila"s people secured the carcase. It was the occasion for a national holiday, but Carlier had a fit of rage over it and talked about the necessity of exterminating all the n.i.g.g.e.rs before the country could be made habitable. Kayerts mooned about silently; spent hours looking at the portrait of his Melie. It represented a little girl with long bleached tresses and a rather sour face. His legs were much swollen, and he could hardly walk. Carlier, undermined by fever, could not swagger any more, but kept tottering about, still with a devil-may-care air, as became a man who remembered his crack regiment. He had become hoa.r.s.e, sarcastic, and inclined to say unpleasant things. He called it "being frank with you." They had long ago reckoned their percentages on trade, including in them that last deal of "this infamous Makola." They had also concluded not to say anything about it. Kayerts hesitated at first--was afraid of the Director.
"He has seen worse things done on the quiet," maintained Carlier, with a hoa.r.s.e laugh. "Trust him! He won"t thank you if you blab. He is no better than you or me. Who will talk if we hold our tongues? There is n.o.body here."
That was the root of the trouble! There was n.o.body there; and being left there alone with their weakness, they became daily more like a pair of accomplices than like a couple of devoted friends. They had heard nothing from home for eight months. Every evening they said, "To-morrow we shall see the steamer." But one of the Company"s steamers had been wrecked, and the Director was busy with the other, relieving very distant and important stations on the main river. He thought that the useless station, and the useless men, could wait. Meantime Kayerts and Carlier lived on rice boiled without salt, and cursed the Company, all Africa, and the day they were born. One must have lived on such diet to discover what ghastly trouble the necessity of swallowing one"s food may become. There was literally nothing else in the station but rice and coffee; they drank the coffee without sugar. The last fifteen lumps Kayerts had solemnly locked away in his box, together with a half-bottle of Cognac, "in case of sickness," he explained. Carlier approved. "When one is sick," he said, "any little extra like that is cheering."
They waited. Rank gra.s.s began to sprout over the courtyard. The bell never rang now. Days pa.s.sed, silent, exasperating, and slow. When the two men spoke, they snarled; and their silences were bitter, as if tinged by the bitterness of their thoughts.
One day after a lunch of boiled rice, Carlier put down his cup untasted, and said: "Hang it all! Let"s have a decent cup of coffee for once.
Bring out that sugar, Kayerts!"
"For the sick," muttered Kayerts, without looking up.
"For the sick," mocked Carlier. "Bosh! . . . Well! I am sick."
"You are no more sick than I am, and I go without," said Kayerts in a peaceful tone.
"Come! out with that sugar, you stingy old slave-dealer."
Kayerts looked up quickly. Carlier was smiling with marked insolence.
And suddenly it seemed to Kayerts that he had never seen that man before. Who was he? He knew nothing about him. What was he capable of?
There was a surprising flash of violent emotion within him, as if in the presence of something undreamt-of, dangerous, and final. But he managed to p.r.o.nounce with composure--
"That joke is in very bad taste. Don"t repeat it."
"Joke!" said Carlier, hitching himself forward on his seat. "I am hungry--I am sick--I don"t joke! I hate hypocrites. You are a hypocrite.
You are a slave-dealer. I am a slave-dealer. There"s nothing but slave-dealers in this cursed country. I mean to have sugar in my coffee to-day, anyhow!"
"I forbid you to speak to me in that way," said Kayerts with a fair show of resolution.
"You!--What?" shouted Carlier, jumping up.
Kayerts stood up also. "I am your chief," he began, trying to master the shakiness of his voice.
"What?" yelled the other. "Who"s chief? There"s no chief here. There"s nothing here: there"s nothing but you and I. Fetch the sugar--you pot-bellied a.s.s."
"Hold your tongue. Go out of this room," screamed Kayerts. "I dismiss you--you scoundrel!"
Carlier swung a stool. All at once he looked dangerously in earnest.
"You flabby, good-for-nothing civilian--take that!" he howled.
Kayerts dropped under the table, and the stool struck the gra.s.s inner wall of the room. Then, as Carlier was trying to upset the table, Kayerts in desperation made a blind rush, head low, like a cornered pig would do, and over-turning his friend, bolted along the verandah, and into his room. He locked the door, s.n.a.t.c.hed his revolver, and stood panting. In less than a minute Carlier was kicking at the door furiously, howling, "If you don"t bring out that sugar, I will shoot you at sight, like a dog. Now then--one--two--three. You won"t? I will show you who"s the master."
Kayerts thought the door would fall in, and scrambled through the square hole that served for a window in his room. There was then the whole breadth of the house between them. But the other was apparently not strong enough to break in the door, and Kayerts heard him running round.
Then he also began to run laboriously on his swollen legs. He ran as quickly as he could, grasping the revolver, and unable yet to understand what was happening to him. He saw in succession Makola"s house, the store, the river, the ravine, and the low bushes; and he saw all those things again as he ran for the second time round the house. Then again they flashed past him. That morning he could not have walked a yard without a groan.
And now he ran. He ran fast enough to keep out of sight of the other man.
Then as, weak and desperate, he thought, "Before I finish the next round I shall die," he heard the other man stumble heavily, then stop. He stopped also. He had the back and Carlier the front of the house, as before. He heard him drop into a chair cursing, and suddenly his own legs gave way, and he slid down into a sitting posture with his back to the wall. His mouth was as dry as a cinder, and his face was wet with perspiration--and tears. What was it all about? He thought it must be a horrible illusion; he thought he was dreaming; he thought he was going mad! After a while he collected his senses. What did they quarrel about?
That sugar! How absurd! He would give it to him--didn"t want it himself.
And he began scrambling to his feet with a sudden feeling of security.
But before he had fairly stood upright, a commonsense reflection occurred to him and drove him back into despair. He thought: "If I give way now to that brute of a soldier, he will begin this horror again to-morrow--and the day after--every day--raise other pretensions, trample on me, torture me, make me his slave--and I will be lost! Lost!
The steamer may not come for days--may never come." He shook so that he had to sit down on the floor again. He shivered forlornly. He felt he could not, would not move any more. He was completely distracted by the sudden perception that the position was without issue--that death and life had in a moment become equally difficult and terrible.
All at once he heard the other push his chair back; and he leaped to his feet with extreme facility. He listened and got confused. Must run again! Right or left? He heard footsteps. He darted to the left, grasping his revolver, and at the very same instant, as it seemed to him, they came into violent collision. Both shouted with surprise. A loud explosion took place between them; a roar of red fire, thick smoke; and Kayerts, deafened and blinded, rushed back thinking: "I am hit--it"s all over." He expected the other to come round--to gloat over his agony.
He caught hold of an upright of the roof--"All over!" Then he heard a crashing fall on the other side of the house, as if somebody had tumbled headlong over a chair--then silence. Nothing more happened. He did not die. Only his shoulder felt as if it had been badly wrenched, and he had lost his revolver. He was disarmed and helpless! He waited for his fate.
The other man made no sound. It was a stratagem. He was stalking him now! Along what side? Perhaps he was taking aim this very minute!
After a few moments of an agony frightful and absurd, he decided to go and meet his doom. He was prepared for every surrender. He turned the corner, steadying himself with one hand on the wall; made a few paces, and nearly swooned. He had seen on the floor, protruding past the other corner, a pair of turned-up feet. A pair of white naked feet in red slippers. He felt deadly sick, and stood for a time in profound darkness. Then Makola appeared before him, saying quietly: "Come along, Mr. Kayerts. He is dead." He burst into tears of grat.i.tude; a loud, sobbing fit of crying. After a time he found himself sitting in a chair and looking at Carlier, who lay stretched on his back. Makola was kneeling over the body.
"Is this your revolver?" asked Makola, getting up.
"Yes," said Kayerts; then he added very quickly, "He ran after me to shoot me--you saw!"
"Yes, I saw," said Makola. "There is only one revolver; where"s his?"
"Don"t know," whispered Kayerts in a voice that had become suddenly very faint.
"I will go and look for it," said the other, gently. He made the round along the verandah, while Kayerts sat still and looked at the corpse.
Makola came back empty-handed, stood in deep thought, then stepped quietly into the dead man"s room, and came out directly with a revolver, which he held up before Kayerts. Kayerts shut his eyes. Everything was going round. He found life more terrible and difficult than death. He had shot an unarmed man.
After meditating for a while, Makola said softly, pointing at the dead man who lay there with his right eye blown out--
"He died of fever." Kayerts looked at him with a stony stare. "Yes,"
repeated Makola, thoughtfully, stepping over the corpse, "I think he died of fever. Bury him to-morrow."
And he went away slowly to his expectant wife, leaving the two white men alone on the verandah.