Bindloss Harold
Long Odds

"It certainly did," he said. "I am glad you did not ask me to hire you the boys. The system under which he obtained them is an iniquity."

Father Tiebout smiled. "The object, I think, was a pious one. One has to use the means available."

"Anyway," said Ormsgill, "the responsibility and the cost is mine."

The priest shook his head. "At least, you can take this gift from me," he said. "It is not much, but one does with pleasure what he can."

It was offered in such a fashion that Ormsgill could only make his grateful acknowledgments, though he had grounds for surmising that the gift would cost the giver months of stringent self-denial, and there was already very little sign of luxury at the Mission. Then he called to his carriers, who swung out of the compound with their burdens in single file, slipping and splashing in the mire. The two men he had left behind stood watching them until the last strip of fluttering cotton had vanished into the misty forest when Father Tiebout looked at his companion with a little smile.

"One could consider the venture our friend has undertaken a folly, but still I think he will succeed," he said. "One could almost fancy that the Powers above us hold the men who attempt such follies in their special keeping."

Nares, as it happened, had been almost uncomfortably stirred during the last ten minutes, but he was Puritan to the backbone, and usually endeavored, at least, to prevent what he felt carrying him away. He was also as a rule ready to join issue with the little priest on any point that afforded him an opportunity.

"There is a difficulty," he said. "I'm not sure he would admit the existence of all the Powers you believe in. There are so many of them. One would fancy that faith was necessary."

Father Tiebout smiled at him again. "Ah," he said, "they who know everything have doubtless a wide charity."

CHAPTER VIII
THE BONDSWOMAN

A small fire burned on the edge of the ravine, flinging out pale red flashes and an intolerable smoke, for the wood was green and wet. It had been raining heavily, and the whole forest that rolled down the slopes of the plateau was filled with a thick white steam. Filmy wisps of it drifted out of the darkness which hid the towering trunks, and streamed by the girl who crouched beside the fire cooking her white lord's evening meal. She was comely, though her face and uncovered arms were of a warm brown. A wide strip of white cotton fell from one shoulder, and half revealed the slenderness of her shapely form. It also covered certain significant discolored bruises on the soft brown skin. The look in her eyes just then, perhaps, accounted for them, for it vaguely suggested intelligence, and a protest against her fate, in place of the hopeless apathy which, after all, saves the native of that country a great deal of trouble. He has been taught drastically that any objection he might reasonably make would certainly be futile and very apt to produce unwished-for results.

A wall of dripping forest rose above the fire, but behind the girl the ground sloped sharply to the brink of a swollen river which rose in the plateaux of the interior, and a little, tattered tent was pitched on the edge of the declivity. In front of it two somewhat ragged white men lay listlessly upon a strip of waterproof ground sheeting. They were worn with travel and a long day's labor, for they had been engaged since sunrise in raft building and ferrying their equipment and trade goods across the river, and, as it happened, had lost most of their provisions in the process. They were of widely different birth and character, and cordially disliked each other, though they had both first seen the light in Africa and community of interest held them together.

Gavin was tall and lean and hard, with an expressionless bronzed face, the son of an English ostrich farmer who had married a Boer woman. He had come into that country on foot with one other survivor of the party he had started with after a difference of opinion with the Boer administration. The others had died with their oxen during their two years' wandering in the wilderness. His companion Herrero passed for a Portuguese, though his hair would curl and his lips were a trifle thick. He was spare in form, and his face was of a muddy yellow with the stamp of sensuality and cruelty in it. He had also been drinking freely, though that is not as a rule a Latin vice, and was still very wet from his labors in the river. He had lower legs like broomsticks, and his torn, drenched trousers clung tightly about his protuberant knees.

"One could fancy that we have been bewitched," he said. "Trouble has followed us all the journey. There was a native woman who looked at us as we left San Roque, and she made a sign."

Gavin laughed contemptuously. "The loads," he said, "were too heavy. It is not economical to overdrive these cattle. One must remember the trek-ox's back."

Herrero blinked at the forest with something that suggested apprehension in his eyes, and it was not difficult to fancy that it and all it held was hostile to the white man. It seemed to crowd in upon him menacingly as the fire leapt up, vague, black, and impenetrable, an abode of unformulated terror and everlasting shadow.

"I have brought up the same loads with fewer boys before," he said. "They did not fall lame or die, as some of these have done. It is known that there is black witchcraft in this bush. There are white men who have gone into it and did not come out again."

"They were probably easier with their carriers than is advisable," and Gavin smiled grimly as he dropped a big hand on a cartridge in his bandolier. "This is a certain witchcraft cure. Still, you have to make your mind up. We can not go on, and take all the trade goods, without provisions."

His companion raised one shoulder in protest against the trouble fate had heaped upon them, for the trade goods were worth a good deal in the country that lay before them.

"It takes almost as much to keep a man in strength whether he marches light or loaded," he said. "It would ruin me if we left any more behind. Boys are scarce just now. One could, perhaps, get provisions in another week's march."

"The boys can not make it," and it was evident that Gavin was languidly contemptuous of his comrade's indecision. "You must leave a few here or you will lose half of them on the way."

He, at least, could face a crisis resolutely, but it was clear that he, too, regarded the carriers as chattels that had a commercial value only, for he was quite aware that, since that was one of the sterile belts, those who were left behind would in all probability die. The men whose fate they were discussing lay among the wet undergrowth apart from them, and Herrero, who appeared to be glancing towards them, raised himself a trifle suddenly.

"Something moves. There in the bush," he said.

"One of the boys," said Gavin, who saw nothing, though his eyes were keen. "Lie down. You have been taking more cognac than is wise lately."

Herrero shrugged his shoulders. "There is always something in the bush. It comes and goes when the boys are asleep," he said. "It is not pleasant that one should see it."

Gavin scarcely smiled. He was growing a trifle impatient with his comrade, who could not recognize when it was necessary to make a sacrifice, and he was ready for his meal. By and by Herrero called to the girl, who filled a calabash from the iron cooking pot hung above the fire, and laid it down in front of him with two basins. The trader lifted a portion of the savory preparation in a wooden spoon and smelled it.

"The pepper is insufficient. How often must one tell you that?" he said, and rising laid a yellow hand upon her arm.

The girl shrank back from him, but he followed her, still holding her arm, and nipped it deeply between the nails of his thumb and forefinger. He did it slowly, and with a certain relish, while his face contracted into a malicious grin. For a moment a fierce light leapt into the girl's eyes, but the torturing grip grew sharper, and it faded again. The man dropped his hand when at last she broke into a little cry, and stooping for the calabash she went back towards the fire. Gavin, who had looked on with an expressionless face, turned to his comrade.

"If you do that too often I think you will be sorry, my friend," he said. "She will cut your throat for you some day."

"No," said Herrero, "it is not a thing that is likely to happen if one uses the stick sufficiently."

His companion smiled in a curious fashion, but said nothing. His mother's people had long ruled the native with a heavy hand, and he had no hesitation in admitting that leniency is seldom advisable. Still, he recognized that in spite of his apathetic patience one may now and then drive the negro over hard, so that when life becomes intolerable he somewhat logically grows reckless and turns upon his oppressors in his desperation, which was a thing that Herrero apparently did not understand.

In the meanwhile the girl crouched silently by the fire, stirring the blistering peppers into the cooking pot, a huddled figure robed in white with meekly bent head and the marks of the white man's brutality upon her dusky body. Every line of the limp figure was suggestive of hopelessness. She might have posed for a statue of Africa in bondage. Still, as it happened, she and the boys who lay apart among the dripping undergrowth glanced now and then towards the forest with apathetic curiosity. Gavin's ears were good, but, after all, he had not depended upon his hearing for life and liberty, as the others had often done, and their keenness of perception was not in him. They knew that strangers were approaching stealthily through the bush. Indeed, they knew that one had flitted about the camp for some little while, but they said nothing. It was the white man's business, and nothing that was likely to result from it could matter much to them.

The fire blazed up a little, but, save for its snapping and the roar of the swollen river, there was silence in the camp, until Gavin rose to one knee with a little exclamation. He had heard nothing, but at last his trained senses had given him a sub-conscious warning that there was something approaching. Just then the girl stirred the fire, and the uncertain radiance flickered upon the towering trunks. It drove an elusive track of brightness back into the shadow, and Herrero scrambled to his feet as a man strode into the light.

He stopped and stood near the fire, dressed in thorn-rent duck, with the wet dripping from him and a little grim smile in his face, and it was significant that although he had nothing in his hands Gavin reached out for the heavy rifle that lay near his side. Strangers are usually received with caution in that part of Africa, and he recognized the man. As it happened, the girl by the fire recognized him, too, and ran forward with a little cry. After all, he had been kind to her while she lived with Lamartine, and it may have been that some vague hope of deliverance sprang up in her mind, for she stopped again and crouched in mute appeal close at his side. Ormsgill laid a hand reassuringly upon her brown shoulder.

He had not spoken a word yet, and there was silence for a moment or two while the firelight flared up. It showed Gavin watching him motionless with the rifle that glinted now and then on his knee, Herrero standing with closed hands and an unpleasant scowl on his yellow face, and the boys clustering waist-deep in the underbrush. Then the trader spoke.

"What do you want?" he said.

"This woman," said Ormsgill simply. "I am willing to buy her from you."

Herrero laughed maliciously. "She is not for sale. You should not have let her slip through your fingers. It is possible you could have made terms with Lamartine."

Ormsgill disregarded the gibe. Indeed, it was one he had expected.

"That," he said, "is not quite the point. Besides, one could hardly fancy that you are quite correct. Everything is for sale in this part of Africa. It is only a question of the figure. You have not heard my offer."

"In this case it would not be a great temptation," and Herrero's grin was plainer. "The girl is now and then mutinous, and that lends the affair a certain piquancy. When she has been taught submission I shall probably grow tired of her and will give her to you. Until then the breaking of her in will afford me pleasure. In fact, as I have never been defied by a native yet I feel that to fail in this case would be a stain on my self-respect."

"I almost think my offer would cover that," said Ormsgill dryly. "It seems to me your self-respect has been sold once or twice before."

Herrero disregarded him, though his face grew a trifle flushed. "Anita," he said, "come here."

The girl rose when Ormsgill let his hand drop from her shoulder, and gazed at him appealingly. Then as he made no sign she turned away with a little hopeless gesture, moved forward a few paces, and stopped again when the trader reached out for a withe that lay on the ground sheet not far from where he stood.

"It would," he said with a vindictive smile, "have saved her trouble if you had stayed away."

"Stop," said Ormsgill sharply, and striding forward stood looking at him. "You have shown how far you would go, which was in one way most unwise of you since you have made it a duty to take the girl from you. What is more to the purpose, it will certainly be done. There are two ways of obtaining anything in this country. One is to buy it, and the other to fight for it. I am willing to use either."

Herrero who saw the glint in his eyes, backed away from him, and flashed a warning glance at Gavin, who turned to Ormsgill quietly.

"I am," he said in English, "willing to stand by, and see fair play, since it does not seem to be altogether a question of business. Still, if it seems likely that you will deprive me of my comrade's services I shall probably feel compelled to take a hand in. He has a few good points though they're not particularly evident, and I can't altogether afford to lose him."

Herrero, who glanced round the camp, waved his hand towards the boys. "I will call them to beat you back into the bush."

Ormsgill raised his voice, and there was a sharp crackling of undergrowth, while here and there a dusky figure materialized out of the shadow.

"As you see, they have guns," he said.

Gavin smiled and tapped his rifle. "Still, they can't shoot as I can. Hadn't you better send them away again, and if you have any offer to make Mr. Herrero get on with it? One naturally expected something of this kind."

Ormsgill made a little gesture with his hand, and the men sank into the gloom again.

"Well," he said, "for the last week I have been trailing you, and as I did not know how long I might be coming up with you, I have plenty of provisions. Yours, it is evident from one or two things I noticed, are running out, and you can't get through the sterile belt without a supply. It was rather a pity the San Roque people burned the village where you expected to get some. I'm open to hand you over all the loads I can spare in return for the girl Anita."

"How many loads?"

Ormsgill told him, and Gavin nodded, "It is a reasonable offer," he said. "I will engage that our friend makes terms with you. Bring in the provisions, and you shall have the girl."

Herrero protested savagely until his companion dryly pointed that since his objections had no weight he was wasting his breath. Then Ormsgill turned away into the bush, and came back with a line of half-naked carrier boys who laid down the loads they carried before the tent. After that he touched the girl's shoulder, and pointed to the hammock two of the boys lowered.

"You are going back to your own village," he said.

The girl gazed at him a moment in evident astonishment, and then waved her little brown hands.

"I have none," she said. "It was burned several moons ago."

It was evident that this was something Ormsgill had not expected, and was troubled at, and Gavin, who watched him, smiled.

"If she belongs to the Lutanga people, as one would fancy from her looks, what she says is very likely correct," he said. "One of the plateau tribes came down not long ago and wiped several villages out. Domingo told me, and from what he said the tribe in question is certainly not one I'd care about handing over a woman to. She would probably have to put up with a good deal of unpleasantness if she went back there. Besides, it seems to me that what you had in view would scarcely be flattering to the lady. It isn't altogether what she would expect from her rescuer."

Ormsgill had already an unpleasant suspicion of the latter fact, for woman's favor is not sought but purchased or commanded in most parts of Africa. Still, he once more pointed to the hammock, and walked behind it without a word when the bearers hove the pole to their wooly crowns.

Then as they flitted into the shadowy bush Gavin turned to Herrero with a little laugh. "There are a few men like him, men with views that bring them trouble," he said. "My father was one. He threw away a big farm on account of them. He would not make obeisance to his new masters when his nation turned its back on him. That, however, is a thing one could scarcely expect you to understand."

Then he called one of the boys and sent him to the fire. "And now we will have supper. After all, I'm not very sorry you lost that girl, my friend."

CHAPTER IX
ANITA BECOMES A RESPONSIBILITY

It was two weeks later when Ormsgill reached the Mission with his boys, footsore, ragged, and worn with travel. He had avoided Anita's hammock as far as possible on the way, and it was with a certain relief he saw her safely installed in one of the dusky adherents' huts. Then he arrayed himself in whole, clean clothes, and when he had eaten sat on the shadowy veranda talking with his host, a somewhat ludicrous figure since Father Tiebout's garments were several sizes too small for him. It was then the hottest part of the afternoon. The perspiration trickled down their faces, and the little priest blinked when he met the blazing sunlight with dazzled eyes.

They spoke in disjointed sentences, sometimes mixing words of three languages, but it was significant that although neither expressed himself with clearness his companion seldom failed in comprehension, for priest and rash adventurer were in curious sympathy. Both of them had borne heat, and fever, and bodily pain, and proved their courage in a land where the white man often sinks into limp dejection. Each had also in his own way done what he could for the oppressed, and had, perhaps, accomplished a little here and there. It was, however, inevitable that their conversation should turn upon the girl Anita.

"I had not heard of the raid up yonder," said the priest. "I am not sure that I am sorry. After all, one hears enough. Still, it no doubt took place. Herrero's companion would have no motive for deceiving you. The question is what is to be done with the woman. To be frank, she cannot stay here."

"Why?" and Ormsgill's face grew a trifle grave, for Anita was rapidly becoming a cause of anxiety to him.

His companion made a little gesture. "She would prove an apple of discord; she is too pretty. One must not expect too much of human nature, and one wife alone is permitted. There is not now a boy she could marry. In the second place, Herrero would probably attempt to seize her here."

It occurred to Ormsgill that Anita might not be anxious or even willing to marry anybody. In fact, he felt it would be an almost astonishing thing if she was. Still, he realized with a vague uneasiness that it is, after all, very often difficult to foresee the course a woman would adopt.

"Then," he said, "I don't know what can be done with her."

"You are not one who would leave a task half finished?"

"At least, I cannot turn this woman adrift."

Father Tiebout wrinkled his brows. "There is, I think, only one place where she would be safe, and that is on the coast. There are also friends of mine who could be trusted to take good care of her in the city, and she could be sent down from the San Thome Mission. It is, however, a long journey."

"If it is necessary," said Ormsgill, "I must make it."

His companion's little gesture seemed to indicate that he believed it was, and Ormsgill dismissed the subject with a smile.

"In that case I will start again to-morrow," he said.

He set out in the early morning, taking two letters from Father Tiebout, one for the man who directed the San Thome Mission, and one to be sent on from there to certain friends of his host's on the coast, and it was two days later when he lay a little apart from his carriers in a glade in the bush. Blazing sunshine beat down into it. There was an overpowering heat, and a deep stillness pervaded the encircling forest, for the beasts had slunk into their darkest lairs in the burning afternoon. The snapping of the fire made it the more perceptible, and Ormsgill could see the blue smoke curl up above a belt of grass behind which the boys were cooking a meal. Anita, who was with them, would, he knew, bring him his portion, and in the meanwhile he felt it was advisable to keep away from her. She had talked very little with him during the last two days, but that was his fault, and he fancied that she failed to understand his reticence. In fact, the signs of favor she had once or twice shown him had rendered him a little uncomfortable.

For all that, his face relaxed into a little dry smile as he wondered what the very formal Mrs. Ratcliffe would think of that journey. He remembered that he had always been more or less of a trial to his conventional friends even before he had been dismissed from his country's service for an offense he had not committed, but he was one of the men who do not greatly trouble themselves about being misunderstood. It is a misfortune which those who undertake anything worth doing have usually to bear with.

He was, however, a little drowsy, for they had started at sunrise and marched a long way since then. There was only one hammock, which somewhat to the carriers' astonishment Anita had occupied, for this was distinctly at variance with the customs of a country in which nobody concerns himself about the comfort of a native woman. It would also be an hour before the boys went on again, and he stretched himself out among the grass wearily, but, for all that, with a little sigh of content. He had found the restraints of civilization galling, and the untrammeled life of the wilderness appealed to him. The need of constant vigilance, and the recognition of the hazards he had exposed himself to, had a bracing effect. It roused the combativeness that was in his nature, and left him intent, strung up, and resolute. The task he had saddled himself with had become more engrossing since it promised to be difficult.

He did not think he slept, for he was conscious of the pungent smell of the wood smoke all the time, but at last he roused himself to attention suddenly, and looked about him with dazzled eyes. He could see the faint blue vapor hanging about the trunks, and hear the boys' low voices, but except for that the bush was very still. Yet he was certainly leaning on one elbow with every sense strung up, and he knew that there must be some cause for it. What had roused him he could not tell, but he had, perhaps, lived long enough in that land to acquire a little of the bushman's unreasoning recognition of an approaching peril. There was, he knew, something that menaced him not far away.

For a moment or two his heart beat faster than usual, and the perspiration trickled down his set face, and then laying a restraint upon himself he rose a trifle higher, and swept his eyes steadily round the glade. There was one spot where it seemed to him that the outer leaves of a screen of creepers moved. He did not waste a moment in watching them, but letting his arm fall under him rolled over amidst the grass which covered him, for it was evidently advisable to take precautions promptly. Just as the crackling stems closed about him there was a pale flash and a detonation, and a puff of smoke floated out from the creepers.

Ormsgill was on his feet in another moment, and running his hardest plunged into them, but when he had smashed through the tangled, thorny stems there was nobody there, and except for the clamor of the boys the bush was very still. Still, this was very much what he had expected, and looking round he saw the print of naked toes and a knee in the damp soil before his eyes rested on the brass shell of a spent cartridge. He picked it up and turned it over in his hand, recognizing it as one made for a heavy, single-shot rifle of old fashioned type, which had its significance for him. He fancied his would-be assassin had been lent the rifle by a white man who in all probability knew what he meant to do with it. Then he glanced at the cartridge again, and noticed a slight outward bending of its rim. There was a portentous little glint in his eyes as he slipped it into his pocket.

"Some day I may come across the man who owns that rifle," he said.

He stood still for another few moments, grim in face, with his jacket rent, and a little trickle of blood running from one hand which a thorn had gashed. Every nerve in him tingled with fierce anger, but he knew that the man who runs counter to established customs has usually more than misconception to face in Africa, especially if he sympathizes with the oppressed, and he was one who could wait. Then the boys came floundering through the undergrowth, one or two with heavy matchets, and one or two with long flintlock guns, but Ormsgill, who recognized that pursuit would certainly prove futile even if they were willing to undertake it, drove them back to the fire again.

"We will start when I have eaten," was all he said.

Anita brought him his meal, and stood watching him curiously while he ate, but Ormsgill said nothing, and in half an hour they went on again and spent the rest of that day and a number of others floundering amidst and hacking a way through tangled creepers in the dim shadow of the bush. It was a relief to all of them when at last the thatched roofs of San Thome Mission rose out of a little opening into which the dazzling sunlight shone. Ormsgill was received by an emaciated priest with a dead white face and the intolerant eyes of a fanatic, who supplied him and the boys with a very frugal meal and took Anita away from him. Then he read Father Tiebout's letters, and after he had done so sat with Ormsgill on the veranda.

"Father Tiebout vouches for you – and your purpose," he said, watching his companion with doubt in his eyes.

"If he had not done so I should probably not have been welcome?" said Ormsgill, smiling.

The priest made a little gesture which seemed to imply that he did not intend to discuss that point. "The girl would be safe with the people he mentions. They are good Catholics."

"I am not sure that is quite sufficient in itself," said Ormsgill reflectively. "Still, Father Tiebout would scarcely have suggested sending her to them unless he had felt reasonably certain that they would show her kindness."

His companion's face hardened. "They are people of blameless lives. There are, perhaps, two or three such in that city. You could count upon the woman receiving kindness from them, but one would have you quite clear about the fact that my recommendation is necessary. It is, of course, in my power to withhold it, and if it is given you will undertake not to claim the woman again?"

Ormsgill looked at him with a little smile. "I have no wish to claim her, though I have only that assurance to offer you, and I must tell you that I am going to the coast. There are, however, one or two conditions. She must be treated well, and paid for her services."

"That would be arranged. It is convenient that she should understand what would be required of her. I will send for her."

Ormsgill made a sign of concurrence, and in another five minutes Anita stood before them, slight and lithe in form, and very comely, but with apprehension and anxiety in her brown face. The priest spoke to her concisely in a coldly even voice, and it was evident that the course he mentioned was one she had no wish to take. Then he turned from her to Ormsgill as she stretched out her hands with a little gesture of appeal towards the latter.

"It is your will that I should go away and live with these people?" she said.

Ormsgill knew that the priest was watching him, and that there was only one answer, but he shrank from uttering it. The girl's eyes were beseeching, and she looked curiously forlorn. She was a castaway without kindred or country, one who had lived the untrammeled life of the bush, and he feared that she would find the restraints of the city intolerably galling.

"It is," he said gravely.

The girl stood very still a moment or two looking at him, and Ormsgill felt the blood creep into his face. He was, in all probability, the only man who had ever shown her kindness, and he recognized that she too had misunderstood his motives and regarded him as rather more than her rescuer. Then as he made no sign she flung out her hands again, hopelessly this time, and slowly straightened herself.

"I go," she said simply and turned away from them.

Ormsgill watched her cross the compound, a forlorn object, with the white cotton robe that flowed about her gleaming in the dazzling sunlight, and then turn for a moment in the shadowy entrance of a palm-thatched hut. He was stirred with a vague compassion, but putting a firm restraint upon himself he sat still, and the girl turning suddenly once more vanished into the dark gap. It also happened that he never met her again.

"One's powers are limited, Father. After all, there is not much one can do for another," he said.

The priest looked hard at him, and then made a little grave gesture. "It is something if one can ease for a moment another's burden. I have, it seems, to ask your pardon for a misconception that was, perhaps, not altogether an unnatural one, Señor."