Bindloss Harold
Long Odds

He did not remember exactly what she said, though he fancied she mentioned that she had some business with his host's sister, and he had no recollection of his own observations, but he sank into tranquil sleep when she went away and awoke refreshed, to wonder when she would come back again. As it happened, she came next day, bringing him choice fruits and wine, and it was by her instructions he was carried out on the veranda above the patio where she sat and talked to him. Her voice was low and tranquil, her mere presence soothing, and she did not seem to mind when he grew drowsy. Once or twice again, when she was not aware that he was watching her, he saw compassion in her eyes. Afterwards, though this was not quite in accordance with Iberian customs, she came for an hour or two frequently, and Ormsgill grew curiously restless when she stayed away. Sometimes his host sat with them and discoursed on politics, but more often he left his deaf sister, who would wander away to superintend the dusky servants' lax activities.

The house, like others of the same type, might have been built for a fortress, and afforded those within it all the seclusion any one could desire. One arched entrance pierced the tall white walls, which had a few little windows with heavy green lattices set high in them. Within, the building rose, tinted a faint pink and terraced with verandas supported by tottering wooden pillars, about a quadrangular patio, and it was characteristic that it was more or less ruinous. When the outer windows were open the sea breeze blew through it, and sitting in cool shadow one could hear the drowsy murmur of the surf. Ormsgill found the latter inexpressibly soothing when Benicia sat near him, and he would lie still contentedly listening to her and watching the shadow creep across the patio. Weak as he was in body, with his mind relaxed, he allowed no misgivings to trouble him. He was vaguely grateful for her presence as a boon that had been sent him without his request, and whether Benicia understood his attitude, or what she thought of it, did not appear.

That was at first, however, and by degrees he took himself to task as his strength came back, until in the hot darkness of one sleepless night he realized towards what all this was leading him. As it happened, Benicia did not appear the next day, and he had nerved himself for an effort by the one that followed. He had an interview with his host and the half-breed doctor, who both protested, and then lay waiting for the girl in a state of tense expectancy. He recognized now what it was most fitting that he should do, but that, after all, is a good deal less than half the battle. It was late in the afternoon when she came, and the first glance showed her that there was a change in Ormsgill.

He lay in a canvas lounge smiling gravely, but he had dressed himself more precisely than usual, and there was a suggestion of resolution in his haggard face which had not been there before. There was also something in his eyes which conveyed the impression that the resolution had cost him an effort, and Benicia laid a certain restraint upon herself, for she knew what had happened. The days in which he had leaned upon her and permitted her unquestioningly to minister to his comfort had, undoubtedly been pleasant, but, after all, she had not expected them to continue.

"You are stronger to-day," she said, with a composure that was a little difficult to assume, as she took a chair beside him.

"I am," said Ormsgill quietly. "In fact I have been getting stronger rapidly of late, and I am glad of it. You see, I have been blissfully idle for a while and I have a good deal to do."

Benicia knew what was coming, but she smiled. "You are sure of that?" she said. "I mean, you still think it is your business?"

"Perhaps it's a little absurd of me, but I do. Anyway, I don't know of anybody else who is willing to undertake it."

"Ah," said Benicia, "would it matter greatly if it was not done, after all? There are so many things one would have altered in Africa – and they still go on. It is possible that nobody will ever succeed in changing them."

It was, though she was, perhaps, not aware of this, a very strong argument she used, one whose force is now and then instinctively realized by every thinking white man in the western half of Africa, and in other parts as well. It is a land that has absorbed many civilizations and continued in its barbarism. Nature unsubdued is against the white man there, and against her tremendous forces his most strenuous efforts are of little avail. Where the air reeks with germs of pestilence and there are countless leagues of swamps breeding corruption, one can expect very little from a few scattered hospitals and an odd mile of drains. Besides, there is in the lassitude born of its steamy heat something that insidiously saps away the white man's will until he feels that effort of any kind is futile, and that in the land of the shadow it is wiser to leave things as they are.

Ormsgill nodded gravely. "Yes," he said, "one recognizes that, but, you see, I don't expect to do very much – merely to keep a promise, and set a few thick-headed heathen at liberty. I think I could accomplish that."

"Why should you wish to set them at liberty?"

"It's a trifle difficult to answer," and Ormsgill laughed. "After all, the motive is probably to some extent a personal one. Anyway, it's not a thing I have any occasion to inflict on you. There was a time when you didn't adopt this attitude, but sympathized with me."

The girl made a little gesture. "I would like to understand. You and Desmond have all that most men wish for. Why are you risking your life and health in Africa?"

A curious little smile crept into Ormsgill's eyes. "Well," he said reflectively, "there are respects in which one's possessions are apt to become burdensome. They seem to carry so many obligations along with them that one falls into bondage under them, and I think some of us are rebels born. We feel we must make our little protest, if it's only by doing the thing everybody else considers reprehensible."

He stopped a moment, and his face grew a trifle grim when he went on again. "In my case it must be made now since I shall probably never have an opportunity of doing anything of the kind again."

Benicia understood him, for she had watched Miss Ratcliffe carefully at Las Palmas. In fact, she had understood him all along. That he should shrink from any claim to philanthropy was only what she had expected from him, and it was also characteristic that he should have made as little as possible of his motives. Admitting that he had to some extent been swayed by the rebellious impulse he had mentioned, she knew there was beneath it a chivalrous purpose that was likely to prove the more effective from its practical simplicity. The Latins can appreciate chivalry, though they do not invariably practice it now, and she realized vaguely that there is nothing in man more knightly than the desire to strike a blow for the oppressed or at his peril to redress a wrong. Ormsgill's sentiments and methods were, perhaps, a trifle crude, and, from one point of view, somewhat old fashioned. He did not preach a crusade, but couched the lance himself. After all, he belonged to a nation which had once, using crude effective means, swept the slavers off that coast, and still stamps its coinage with the George and Dragon.

It was, however, after all, not so much as a redresser of grievances and a friend of the oppressed, but as a man that Benicia regarded her companion, for she knew that she loved him. She said nothing, and in a minute or two he spoke again.

"There is a thing that has been on my mind the last few days," he said. "The fever must have left me too shaky to think of it before. I am afraid, though it was very pleasant to see you, I haven't quite kept faith with your father in allowing you to come and talk with me. You, of course, don't understand exactly how the Authorities regard me."

Benicia smiled a little, for she understood very well. "I don't think that counts," she said, "and what is, perhaps, more to the purpose, my father is not here; he has gone, I believe, on business of the State, into the bush country. If you had remembered earlier you would have been anxious to send me away?"

She leaned forward looking at him, and saw the tension in his face. It told her a good deal, and she felt that for all his resolution she could, if she wished, bend him to her will.

"No," he said, "I'm not sure I could have done it if I had wished. In fact, the week – is it a week? – I have lain here has been such a one as I have never spent before. Now I am horribly sorry that it is over."

There was something in his voice which fully bore out what he had said, but Benicia was aware that it was she who had forced the admission from him without his quite realizing its significance. She knew that he would speak more plainly still if she kept her eyes on him.

"It is over? You can countenance no more of my visits, then?" she asked.

"I am," said Ormsgill gravely, "going away again before to-morrow."

Benicia sat very quiet, and contrived that he did not see her face for a moment or two. She had, at least, not expected this, and it sent a thrill of dismay through her. Steady as his voice was, she was aware that the simple announcement had cost the man a good deal.

"You are not strong enough for the journey yet," she said at length. "It would not be safe."

Ormsgill smiled in a curious wry fashion. "It does not require much strength to lie still in a hammock, and I shall no doubt get a little more every day. Besides, I almost think there is a certain danger here. In fact, it would be safer for me up yonder in the bush."

Benicia was quite aware that he was not thinking chiefly of the danger of arrest, and again a little thrill that was no longer altogether one of dismay ran through her. He was, it seemed, afraid of sinking wholly under her influence. Again she leaned a little forward, and laid her hand upon his arm.

"You must go? Would nothing keep you here – at least until you are fit to travel?" she asked.

She saw his lips set for a moment, and the tinge of grayness creep into his face. Then, with a visible effort, he laid a restraint upon himself.

"If I do not go," he said simply, "I should be ashamed the rest of my life. Perhaps, that would not matter so much, but, as it happens, one can't always bear his shame himself."

Benicia turned a little in her chair, and let her hand fall back again. She knew that if she chose to exert her power he would not go at all, but it was probably fortunate that she did not choose. After all, she was a lady of importance in that land, and had the pride of her station in her. Though he loved her, she would not stoop to claim him against his will, and, what was more, she had a vague perception of the fact that he was right. A wrong done could not be wiped out by the mere wish to obliterate it, and she felt that if he broke faith with the Englishwoman in Las Palmas and slackly turned back from the task which he, at least, fancied was an obligation upon him, there might come a time when the fact would stand between them and she would remember the stain upon his shield. She hated the Englishwoman with Latin sincerity, but in this case her pride saved her from a fall. There are other people who owe their pride a good deal.

"Then," she said slowly, "one can only tell you to go. Some time, perhaps, you will come back again?"

She rose, and Ormsgill with an effort stood up awkwardly, and taking the hand she held out held it a moment. "I do not know," he said with a faint trace of hoarseness. "It is not often possible for one to do what one would wish, and there are – duties – laid on me. Still, if it should be possible – " He broke off for a moment, and then went on again in a different tone very quietly, "In the meanwhile I must thank you. I owe you a good deal."

He watched her go down the stairway, and then leaned on the balustrade for awhile wondering vaguely what would have happened if he had flung off all restraint and let himself go. He did not know that while he was nearest to doing so Benicia Figuera had laid a restraint on him, and that had she permitted it he would have rushed headlong to a fall. There are times when the strength of a usually resolute man is apt to prove a snare to him. Then he sat down wearily in the canvas chair again, and when the land breeze swept through the city that night he and his handful of carriers slipped quietly out of it.

CHAPTER XXIII
THE SLACKENING OF RESTRAINT

A half moon had just sailed up above the shoulder of a hill, and its pale light streamed into the veranda of the little mission house which stood in a rift of the great scarp where the high inland plateau breaks down to the levels of the sun-scorched littoral. The barren hillslopes round about it were streaked with belts of gleaming sand, and above them scrubby forests, destitute of anything that man or beast could eat, rolled back to the vast marshes of the western watershed, but the bottom of the deep valley was green and fertile as a garden. It had, however, only been made so by patient labor, for even in the tropics there is no escape from the primeval ban. It is by somebody's tense effort that man is provided with his daily bread, and where he labors least he lives most like the animals, for nature unsubdued is very rarely bountiful. She sends thorns and creepers to choke the young plantations, and the forest invades the clearing when the planter stays his hand. But in Western Africa the white man sees that the negro fights the ceaseless battle for him. It is, in his opinion, what the black man was made for, and those who know by what methods he obtains and controls his dusky laborers in certain tracts of the dark land wonder now and then why such things are permitted and if there will never be a reckoning. That is, however, only one aspect of a very old question, and it is admittedly difficult to be an optimist in Africa.

Still, there was, for the time being, at least, quietness and good will in that lonely rift among the hills, and Nares, sitting on the mission house veranda in the moonlight, felt its beneficent influence, though he was suffering from that most exasperating thing the prickly heat, which had, as it frequently does, followed a slight attack of fever. Two patient men from his own country sat with him, and it was clear that their toil had not been in vain. He could see the sprinkling of white blossom on the trees beneath him that bore green limes, and beyond these were rows of mangoes, coffee plants, and sweet potato vines, but the huts of the dusky converts were silent and hidden among the leaves. There was no sound but the soft murmur of running water. A deep serenity brooded over it all.

"A garden!" he said. "In this country one could call it a garden of the Lord."

The elder of his two companions smiled, for he had shrewdness as well as faith.

"Thanks in part, at least, to our mountain wall," he said. "We lie several leagues from the only road, and that is not a much frequented one. There is, most fortunately, little commerce in this strip of country, and the great roads lie as you know far to the south of us. Still, I sometimes wonder how we have been left alone so long, and we have had our warnings."

"Herrero now and then comes up this way?"

The missionary nodded. "He is the thorn in our side," he said. "Domingo, his associate, as of course you know, rambles through the back country. There is no one else to cause us anxiety, but Herrero has an old grudge against us. There were villages in these valleys when he first came here, and he swept them almost clean. We gathered up the remnant of the people, and now they will not buy his rum from him."

"If the news we got with our last supplies is correct he can not be more than a few days' march away," the younger man broke in. "I have been wondering how often he will pass us by. Some day he will come down on us. It's a sure thing."

Nares straightened himself a trifle. He had for several years borne almost all a man could bear and live through in that land, and after he left Ormsgill had fled inland, proscribed, finding no safety anywhere until his countrymen at their peril had offered him shelter at the mission. Besides, he had fever and prickly heat, which tries the meekest white man's patience, and it was New England stock he sprang from. He was a Puritan by birth as well as training, of the old grim Calvinistic strain, and his forbears had believed that the sword of the Lord is now and then entrusted to human hands. In that faith they had faced their king at Naseby, and in later days and another land held their own at Bunker Hill, and again crushed the Southern slave-owners' riflemen. It awoke once more deep down in the heart of their descendant as he sat on the mission veranda that night.

"What will you do then?" he said. "It sometimes seems to me that we have borne enough. One could almost wonder if there is anything more than prudence in our non-resistance. That alone seldom carries one very far."

A faint sparkle crept into the eyes of the younger man, for there was also a capacity for righteous wrath in him, but his elder companion raised a restraining hand.

"What can we do that will not bring down trouble on our followers' heads?" he asked.

Nares had not slept for several nights, and that coming on top of his other troubles had its effect on him, for he was, after all, very human, and the white man's self-restraint is apt to grow feeble in that land where his passions usually grow strong. Now and then, indeed, it breaks down altogether suddenly.

"Somebody must suffer for every reform," he said. "It seems that a sacrifice is demanded, and the ban is upon us still. Here, at least, the cost of man's progress is the shedding of blood." Then he made a little forceful gesture. "They are arming in the bush. In another month or two there will be very grim doings at San Roque."

The older man changed the subject abruptly. "You have your own course to consider. Have you come to a decision yet? I almost think if you surrendered to a responsible officer the Society has influence enough to secure your acquittal. After all, there are a few honest men upon the coast."

Nares looked at him with a curious little smile. "It is possible that I might escape with my liberty, but not until those who hate us had blackened my character and flung discredit upon the aims and methods of the men who sent me here. Is my acquittal worth what it would cost your Society? Would the folks down yonder miss such an opportunity as my trial would afford them of making us out political intriguers and destroyers of authority?"

He broke off for a moment, and laughed softly. "Still, they can't very well have a trial without a prisoner, and I shall wait in the bush until Ormsgill overtakes me. I have left word for him here and there with men who I think will not betray me."

"Why shouldn't you stay here?" asked the younger man.

"And bring the authorities down upon you? You know the cost of harboring me. Still, I will wait a day or two. Ormsgill must go inland by the road through the next valley, and if he has escaped the troops, there should be news of him any hour now."

The others said nothing further. They knew those in authority had, perhaps, naturally little love for them, and would make the most of the opportunity if it became evident that they had sheltered a proscribed man. After all, they had a duty to their flock and the men who had sent them out. Nares, who guessed their thoughts, smiled at them.

"It is all decided," he said. "When Ormsgill comes up I, believing as I do in the straitest teaching of the Geneva fathers, am going into the interior with him to accomplish the work he has undertaken for the repose of the soul of the rum trader Lamartine."

Again his companions made no answer. After all, the creeds now and then grow vague in Africa, or, perhaps, in the anguish of life in the dark land they are purged of their narrowness and amplified. Besides this, it was evident that Nares was a trifle off his balance. There was silence for the next half hour. One of the men had toiled with the hoe among his flock that day, and the other had come back from a long march to a native village. The night was clear and cool and wonderfully still, and the peace of the garden valley crept in on them. One could almost have fancied the mission had been translated far from Africa, where tranquillity that is not tempered with apprehension seldom lasts very long. Then a sharp cry, harsh with human pain and terror, rang out of the soft darkness, and the man in charge of the station rose quietly from his chair.

"Herrero's men are here. Our time has come at last," he said.

The others rose with him, and stood very still for a moment or two listening until the cry arose again more shrilly, and there was a clamor among the unseen huts. The crash of a long flintlock gun broke through it, and in the midst of the uproar they heard a patter of naked feet. Half-seen shadowy figures swept past among the leaves, and a red glare that grew momentarily brighter leapt up behind the mango trees.

"Herrero's men," said the older man again, as though in the bitterness of the moment that was all that occurred to him.

They followed him down the stairway, though none of them knew what they meant to do, and, while now and then a half-naked figure dashed past them, down a narrow path between the trees, until the thatched roofs of the village rose close in front of them. One of them was blazing fiercely, and in another few minutes they saw a little group of dusky figures scurrying to and fro with burdens in the glare. A man among the latter also saw the newcomers, for apparently in drunken bravado he flung up a long gun, and there was a flash and a detonation as he fired at random. Nares saw him clearly, a big, brawny man swaying half-naked on his feet with short cotton draperies hanging from his waist, and his truculence was a guide to his profession. He was one of the hired ruffians who escort the labor recruits to the coast, and the African has no more grievous oppressor than the negro who acts as the white man's deputy.

Still, the missionaries saw very little more just then, for at the flash of the gun a swarm of terror-stricken boys who had been lurking there broke out from the shadow of the outlying huts, and swept madly up the path. Nares ran forward to meet them, calling to them in a native tongue, but it was not evident that they understood him, for they ran on. He felt one of his comrade's hands upon his shoulder, but he shook it off, and clutched at one of the flying men nearest him. He was overwrought that night, and his patience had gone. An unreasoning fury of indignation came upon him, and in the midst of it he remembered that it was most unlikely Herrero's boys would do more than attempt to overawe any one who might venture to resist them with their guns. Yet here was a flock of sturdy men flying in wild panic from a handful of ruffians. Perhaps this was natural. The men had seen what came of resistance, and had been taught drastically that it was wisest to submit to the white man and those whom he permitted to persecute them.

In any case, Nares's efforts availed him nothing, for the crowd of fugitives surged about him and his companions and bore them along. They could neither make head against it nor struggle clear, and were jostled against each other and driven forward until the crowd grew thinner abreast of the mission house where several paths that led to the hillslopes and the bush branched off. Then at last they reeled out from among the negroes, and while they stood gasping, Nares looked at the man in charge of the station with a question in his eyes. The latter made a little gesture of resignation.

"That is certainly Herrero's work, and I think he has given them rum, but there is nothing we can do," he said. "They may burn a hut or two, but they can be built again, and the boys – I am thankful – have taken to the bush. We will go back to the house."

This was not exactly to Nares' mind, but he recognized that there was wisdom in it, and they went up the little stairway and sat down once more upon the veranda. Now and then a hoarse shouting reached them, and the glare of burning thatch grew brighter, but nobody came near to trouble them. After all, a missionary's color counted for something, and it was a perilous thing for a negro who had not direct authority to meddle with him. Still, the older man's face was troubled.

"They will go away by and by, and there is, fortunately, very little in the huts," he said. "There is only one thing I am anxious about. Our store shed stands in a thicket among the trees yonder close beneath us. We built it there not to be conspicuous, and they may not notice it, but it is only a few weeks since our supplies came in – drugs and cloth, besides tools, and goods that we could not replace."

Nares made a little gesture of comprehension. He knew that the finances of the stations in that country are usually somewhat strained, and that when supplies went missing on the journey from the coast, as they sometimes did, the efforts of those they were intended for were apt to be crippled for many months.

"The place is locked?" he said.

"It is," said the younger man with a little smile. "After all, the boys are human. The door and building are strong enough, and the roof is iron. They can not burn it."

Nares glanced at his older companion and saw that there was still concern in his face. Half an hour dragged by, and they sat still struggling with the uneasiness that grew upon them. There was less shouting in the village, and the fire was evidently dying down, but now and then a hoarse clamor reached them. Nares felt that to sit there and do nothing was a very hard thing. At last the younger man pushed his chair back sharply.

"I think they have found where the store shed is. They are coming here," he said.

"I wonder who has told them," said his companion.

A patter of feet grew nearer, and Nares felt his mouth grow dry as he forced himself to sit still and listen, until several shadowy figures flitted out from among the trees. Then the older man's question was answered, for one of them dragged a Mission boy along with him. He carried a hide whip in one hand, and turned towards the veranda with a truculent laugh as he brought it down on his captive's quivering limbs.

"Ah," said the younger man with sharp incisiveness, "I do not think one could blame that boy."

More figures appeared behind the others, and they flitted across the strip of open space towards the store shed, after which there were hoarse shouts and a sound of hammering which ceased again. Then Herrero's boys came back by twos and threes, big, muscular negroes with short draperies fluttering from their hips, some of them lurching drunkenly. Three or four also carried long flintlock guns, and the one who had the whip still dragged the Mission boy along. They stopped in the clear space beneath the house, and Nares, who felt his heart beat, set his lips tight as one of them strode forward to the foot of the short veranda stairway. He was almost naked, and for a moment or two the white men sat still, and looked at him. It was, they felt, just possible that at the last moment his assurance would fail him. Perhaps, he understood what they were thinking, for he made a little contemptuous gesture.

"We want the key to the store," he said in halting Portuguese.

Then Nares turned to the head of the station. "You mean to give it him?"

"No," said the older man simply. "If they are able to break into the shed I can not help it, but, at least, I will do nothing to make it easier for them. I am the Society's steward and these goods are entrusted to me."

Nares looked at his younger companion, and saw a little smile in his eyes. It was clear that force would be useless, even if they had been willing to resort to it, but passive resistance was not forbidden them, and while apt to prove perilous it might avail, since it was scarcely probable that Herrero's boys could find the key. Then the younger man turned to the negro.

"We will never give you the key," he said.

"Then we will come and take it," said the man below.

He signed to his companions, and when three or four of them gathered about him clamoring excitedly Nares felt his blood tingle and his face grow hot. Perhaps it was the fever working in him, and he was certainly overwrought, and, perhaps, it was a subconscious awakening of the white man's pride. After all, the men of his color held dominion, and it was an intolerable thing that one of them should submit to personal indignity at a negro's hand. A little quiver ran through him, but his restraint did not break down until the big truculent negro came up the stairway and laid a greasy black hand upon the shoulder of the worn and haggard man who ruled the station. He shook him roughly, grinning as he did it, and then Nares' self-control suddenly left him. Swinging forward on his left foot he struck at the middle of the heavy, animal face, and the negro staggering went backwards down the stairway. Then with the sting of his knuckles a change came over Nares, for the passions he had long held in stern subjection were suddenly unloosed. At last he had broken down under a tension that had been steadily growing intolerable, and he turned on his persecutors as other men of his faith have done. When men of that kind strike they strike shrewdly.

There was also a change in the negroes' attitude. They had maltreated their own countrymen at their will, but they had as yet never laid hands upon a white man. Perhaps, it was the rum Herrero had given them which had stirred their courage, and, perhaps, they regarded a missionary as a good-humored fool who had for some inconceivable reason flung the white man's prerogative away. In any case, they were coming up the stairway, three or four of them, and now the first man carried a matchet, an instrument which resembles an old-fashioned cutlass. Nares, who asked for no directions, sprang into the room behind him where one of the trestle cots not unusual in that country stood. It had a stout wooden frame, and he rent one bar from the canvas laced to it. In another moment he was back at the head of the stairway where the man in charge of the station stood, frail, and haggard, but very quiet, with his thin jacket rent open where the negro had seized him. A foot or two below him the man with the matchet was coming up, naked to the waist, and half-crazed with rum. Nares could see his eyes in the moonlight, and that was enough.