Bindloss Harold
The League of the Leopard

CHAPTER XX
MAXWELL'S LAST MARCH

Maxwell was never addicted to losing time, and, thanks to Miss Castro's efforts, he had a clear start of Rideau, when he left Little Mahu. Redmond, being warned by a message posted on from the cable station farther along the coast, had a number of picked men ready; and Amadu declared that they were sturdy cattle. Both traders had done their utmost, and by dint of working night and day, Maxwell was able to leave their factory two days after he reached it.

They followed him to the compound gate, where Gilby gazed longingly at the forest and then sighed as he surveyed the line of brawny men, each of whom stood waiting beside his burden. Their clothing was simple. Broad folds of white cotton hung over one shoulder, and, drooping to the knee, were belted at the waist by a band from which a matchet hung. A number of the men also carried long flintlock guns.

"They're warranted free from civilization, and fit for almost anything, if you drive them with a tight rein," Gilby said.

"The niggers are fit enough," agreed Redmond. "If I were you, Maxwell, I wouldn't spare them. Nobody has heard anything of Rideau since he reported you as hopelessly hemmed in, but there's not much happens in this region he does not get news of, and it's my humble opinion he'll turn up somewhere along your trail just when you least desire to see him. As you probably know, news travels very fast in this country. That fellow must have some influence with the nigger headmen or the chiefs of the Leopards, or somebody would have cut his throat long ago. You'll have to push on your fastest to keep ahead of him."

"I quite appreciate the necessity," Maxwell replied quietly. "But if it were not for my comrade's sake I think I'd wait for him. It strikes me that I am wasting precious time now, and I'll leave you with my best thanks for your assistance."

One trader thumped him on the back, the other grasped his hand.

"Good luck!" cried Redmond. "We'll put a spoke in Rideau's wheel if we can."

"You're the sort of man I take to!" Gilby added. "We'll use up a whole quarter's allowance, and turn this place inside out when you come back again."

Maxwell beckoned to Amadu, and waved his hand to the traders, as his carriers picked up their loads; and the two stood gazing after him until the steamy forest swallowed the long line of plodding men. They never saw him again, and it was some time before any news of his movements reached them, but meanwhile Gilby nearly brought about the death of Rideau's principal assistant, and ever afterward regretted he did not wholly do so.

That evening Gilby was returning with a gun in his hand from a prowl beside a lagoon soon after darkness fell, when his boot became unlaced near the factory boys' quarters, which stood at some distance from the white men's dwelling. Gilby seated himself on a fallen log, and remained a few minutes glancing meditatively, but unseen himself, toward a group of dusky figures crouching around a cooking-fire just outside the edifice. They sat with their backs toward the long, low shed, and, because the fire had sunk, the light was dim and fitful. Accordingly, Gilby saw, though the negroes did not, a shadowy form crawl without a sound down the slope of thatch. With suspicions aroused, Gilby reached out for his gun. It was a heavy big-bore, and there was a large-shot cartridge in either chamber.

Still, he was distinctly puzzled until the crawling object resolved itself into a man, who dropped noiselessly from the overhanging eaves, and the next moment appeared before the astonished negroes, as though he had fallen from the clouds. It was cleverly done, and Gilby could see by the negroes' attitude that they were impressed. The stranger was evidently one of the wandering magicians who are a power in that country, and wanted something from the Krooboys. Gilby, having suffered by the visits of similar gentlemen, determined to demonstrate to his servants the hollowness of such trickery, and furnish the intruder with cause to regret having frightened them. He could see the dusky figures shrink backward until the stranger checked them with an imperious gesture, and asked questions in some native tongue. As Gilby crept carefully nearer, the man's appearance seemed to be familiar. He wore a broad palm-leaf hat low down on his forehead, but as the firelight leaped up the trader felt almost certain that he had before him Rideau's headman.

"If you lib for move a foot, I'll shoot you!" he shouted, pitching up the gun.

There was a murmur, apparently of relief, from the Kroos, and, though Gilby afterward said he did not run, the stranger's figure grew less distinct. It had almost vanished when he called again, and, receiving no answer, pressed the trigger. A wisp of smoke blew into his eyes, he heard the lead smash through the frail boarding of the shed; but though he was a tolerable shot there was no other sound beyond the concussion flung back from the palms above. Gilby, dashing forward, searched all the surrounding bush before he returned to the Krooboys, having found nothing.

"What did them Ju-ju man lib for want?" he asked.

"He done ask us how many boy them white man take, and when he lib for bush, sah," answered a trembling negro.

"I'll stop half your rations if the next time he comes one of you doesn't lib for get out soffly, soffly, and tell me," said the trader. "I'll also flog any boy who tells him what he wants to know!"

"Were you trying to shoot yourself, Gilby?" asked Redmond, meeting him at the foot of the stairway. "I'd try to hang out here on top as long as possible, if I were you."

"I was trying to shoot one of those confounded Ju-ju men, more fool me. The beggar got away, and, though of course it was trickery, he did it cleverly. I believe it was that brute of Rideau's."

"Then it would have saved somebody a lot of trouble if you had held straighter. Rideau doesn't usually make his movements plain, but it will be unlucky for Maxwell if those two rascals are on his trail."

Maxwell in the meantime was pushing north with feverish haste. He did not know what had happened at the factory, but he feared many things, and guessed that his rival would miss no opportunity to prevent his joining hands with his comrade. Still, he could not forecast what his plan would be, and could only redouble his precautions and make Amadu solemnly promise to carry relief to the threatened camp if disaster overtook him personally. Also he traveled very fast, for Maxwell possessed the gift of getting the utmost out of his men, and because news flies swiftly through the African bush, that perhaps accounted for his being able to cover the distance he did before misfortune overtook him.

The rains had set in, when, with Amadu some paces behind him, he plodded one day through thick jungle before his men. The deluge had ceased during the last hour, but the narrow path ran water, while the cane, which grew higher than a tall man's head on either side, shook down drenching showers alike on soaked white man and naked negro. Belts of thick steam drifted across it in places. There was no sound but the splash of moisture and the fall of weary feet, but Maxwell, with his pistol loose in its waterproof holster, marched the more cautiously. He had faced numerous perils in his time, and had learned never to run an unnecessary risk; and the jungle he traversed was particularly suitable for an ambush.

Amadu, who recognized this, also was vigilant, and swept the cane on either side with searching eyes. He endeavored to persuade his master to travel in his hammock; but unavailingly. Therefore he carried the long Snider rifle with its breech well covered by his arm, and felt at times with wet fingers for the hilt of the short, straight blade, which hung at his side. He was a tolerable shot, but like most of the Moslem tribesmen deadly with the steel.

"These men march well," said Maxwell. "We should reach the camp within a week if nothing hinders us. Tell them to spread out a little and keep their matchets ready. The cane is getting thicker."

Amadu moved backward along the plodding line, and when he turned to rejoin his master, Maxwell was some distance in front of him. The path twisted sharply round a thicker clump of cane, and suddenly Amadu caught a glimpse of a tiny black patch among the dripping stems. Nevertheless, he evinced no sign of notice until he was certain that the black strip formed part of a human arm; and then he was called upon to make an eventful decision. The dusky soldier of fortune knew that if an ambush had been planted among the cane the lurking foe would, should both pass apparently unobservant, hold their fire until, by a volley poured into the main body, they could spread panic and cut the column in two. That might mean the loss of many black men; but Amadu counted these as beasts of burden in comparison with his master. He guessed that almost before he could pitch up his rifle a poisoned arrow or a charge of ragged potleg would strike down the white man. So he held on stolidly, with dusky lips set tight, hoping that Maxwell might not see what he had until the corner was passed. Then there might still be time to crawl in upon the enemy from behind.

Maxwell walked straight on until he turned and glanced over his shoulder; then he shook the moisture from his jacket, and in doing so, let his hand slip from its lower corner to his revolver holster. He turned again, with death, as it were, suspended above his head; and Amadu gasped as he approached the thicker clump of cane. There was now no sign of an enemy's presence in all the jungle; only the splashing and panting of the carriers behind.

Suddenly the white man's hand swept out level with his shoulder, and almost at the same instant a bright flash blazed from the cane. Then the quick ringing of a rifle broke through the dull thud of the flintlock and the pistol's second crack, and Maxwell, reeling a little, hurled himself into the thicket.

With a roar to those who followed, Amadu plunged in too, a score of clamorous black men with naked blades hard behind, and was just in time to spring upon a naked man who strove to clear an entangled foot from the creeper withes. The short blade twice passed through him; and wrenching it free with an exultant laugh, Amadu floundered on. For a space he and his followers smashed through that strip of jungle, but found only a smoking rifle and one flintlock gun; then calling off the rest, he led them back to the path. Maxwell was sitting there in a pool of water.

"Send those boys back," he said thickly. "One of those brutes missed me, the other did not. One can't always guess aright, Amadu, and I thought there were at least a score of them."

Amadu groaned. He could see that his master was hard stricken, for he looked faint and cold, and did not usually converse with his subordinates in that kind of English. Still, he understood the first sentence, and drove the curious black men back beyond the corner before he stooped over the speaker. Maxwell's face was distorted and clammy. There was a stain on the side of his jacket, and it plainly cost him an effort to speak.

"Did you lib for chop them bush boy, Amadu?"

"One of him, sah," was the grim answer. "He done leave them rifle."

"Let me see," said Maxwell. "That is an old chassepot. Rideau had a number of them. You don't quite follow? Well, you got the wrong man, Amadu. Don't stand there, but slit up this jacket. Chop them doff piece up the side of him."

Amadu did it with the still wet blade, and groaned again when Maxwell, turning his head a little, looked down at the slow, red trickle from his right side, then passed his hand across his lips and nodded when he saw what there was upon it.

"Take them lil' silver bottle out of my pocket and pull the top off him," he said very slowly; and when Amadu had done so he gulped down a draught of lukewarm brandy before he spoke again.

"I don't suppose it's much use, but you may as well take the knife that's in the pocket, and feel if there's any potleg near the top. Well, why don't you do it? You need not be frightened. It won't bleed much – that way."

Amadu shivered as he probed the wound. Maxwell's face grew grayer, and after a downward glance out of half-closed eyes he shook his head and stretched out one hand for more of the brandy. Then there was a heavy silence for several minutes.

"If I could lie still with ice to suck until somebody brought a surgeon there might be a chance; but that's out of the question here," he said in a rambling fashion, and then roused himself. "You don't understand. Well, I'll try in the little I know of your own idiom. We have made two great journeys together, but now it is written that I shall shortly set out on a longer one alone, Amadu."

Maxwell spoke thickly, but there was a wry smile on his lips as he watched the big dark-skinned alien, who, rending his cotton robe, bound a pad of wet leaves upon the injured side.

"It is useless, Amadu." Maxwell coughed once or twice. "Listen. Because of something you may remember you dare not fail me, and this is my word to you. I made a promise which must be kept, and you will carry me to the white man's camp before six days are over, alive or dead."

Amadu looked eastward across the jungle, spread his palms outward, and then bent his head.

"By fire and salt, and the beard of the Prophet it shall be so," he said in his own tongue. "And I would it may also be written that I shall still follow my master should these dogs of bushmen meddle again."

"Your master is one of the infidel," replied Maxwell. "Now see that none of these others know what has overtaken me, and call up the hammock men."

Maxwell was leaning on Amadu's shoulder when the hammock appeared round the bend, and none of the black men who lifted him into it guessed how hard he had been hit; and the monotonous carrying chanty drowned the groans he could not quite suppress. The heavens were opened as the march began again, and the rain rushed down. It lashed the negroes' oily skins until they tingled, the trail became a streamlet, and the mire in places fouled them to the knee; but Amadu, having given his promise, saw to the keeping of it with a terrible persistence, and they trudged on doggedly, the dripping hammock always before them. As one worn-out bearer stumbled another replaced him, and the march progressed until long after darkness fell, and after a few hours' halt in drifting mist it began again.

So the long days and black nights passed. There were odd flashes of sunlight, and once or twice the moon looked down; but between these times the air was filled with the steam of the saturated earth or with a rush of lukewarm water.

Late one night, when the weary carriers lay camped for a brief rest in thick forest, Maxwell beckoned Amadu. He lay in the slung hammock, a lantern burning behind his head.

"You will start in two hours. I must reach the camp before another night comes. My time is short," he said.

Amadu, looking down at him gravely, saw that the words were true; but he strove to deny them in his own tongue.

Maxwell smiled wearily, answering him in English beyond his complete comprehension.

"I have known many men of lighter tint I could part from more easily, Amadu. If we reach the camp before another night comes you shall have my big elephant gun."

The dusky man stood upright.

"I carried an Emir's standard. Will you bribe me with a gun to keep the oath I swore?"

Maxwell must have been in a state of torment about that time, but he was in his own way a man of extravagant pride, and it was perhaps to deny his weakness that he spoke again.

"Yet it is a good gun," he said, with a trace of his old dryness. "Once you will remember at over a hundred paces it drove a smooth ball through a rash bushman's head. You could keep it in remembrance – couldn't you?"

The alien stooped and laid one of the thin hands on his own bent head, then dropped it suddenly, for from somewhere far off a faint sound scarcely more than audible trembled across the forest. Maxwell strove to raise himself to listen, but before he could speak his lieutenant sprang bolt upright, and his voice rang out. It was the sound of firing, and even at that distance something warned the listeners that the quick beat of it betokened modern rifles.

The hammock-bearers, who feared their new master rather more than the old, came up at the double; bundles were thrown hurriedly on to woolly crowns; the tired men swung into line; and the little camp grew empty.

Amadu, limping behind the hammock, laughed.

"If it be the will of Allah, I shall see that big gun make even a bigger hole in more than one heathen's head!"

CHAPTER XXI
RELIEF

Hilton Dane sat with a fouled rifle across his knees in an angle of the stockade protecting what had been the hospital camp. It was, however, a hospital no longer, for some of the sick had recovered, and the rest had died. Dane considered that he might have saved more of them had he been more skilled in medicine, but he had done his best according to his abilities; and none of the poor wretches seemed to blame him. Still, there were times when he felt like a murderer as some unfortunate sufferer's eyes turned in his direction, beseeching help, and he could do nothing but watch him die. They died, for the most part, as apathetically as they had lived, the heathen with the uncomplaining stolidity which had carried them through much hardship and cruelty, and those who followed the prophet testifying that it was Allah's will.

Dane remembered it all that morning as he looked round upon the remnant left him, for it seemed hardly possible that any would see another day. When the pestilence relaxed its grip he had resumed the mining, until the tribesmen hemmed them in. Once the foe tried to storm the camp, and failed so signally that beyond creeping up and firing into it, they had not repeated the attempt until the preceding night, when a few succeeded in passing the defenses. These, however, did not survive very long. On the other hand, the garrison could not get out, and though they had no lack of water, one cannot subsist upon fluid alone, and there was very little else.

The men lay about the stockade with their rusty guns beside them, the negro, Bad Dollar, filing his matchet, as he did continually. The man Dane called Monday, however, crouched close beside him. A curious friendship had sprung up between the two, and they would talk long together with mutual satisfaction, though neither of them fully understood his companion.

A ravine cut the camp off from the forest in the rear, and beyond the front stockade the ground fell steeply to the river. There was forest across it, but only the tops of the higher trees rose out of the mist which shrouded all the plain below.

"You tink Cappy Maxwell perhallups come to-day, sah?" asked Monday.

"He will certainly come some day," Dane answered with a cheerfulness he found it hard to assume. "It would be opportune if he came just now, especially as he might be too late to-morrow. A miss is rather better than a mile in the present case, but you let too many of your black friends get in last night, Monday."

The dusky man, for he was not a negro, looked up at the speaker doubtfully and shook his head.

"I no savvy all them palaver, sah, but Cappy Maxwell too much fine white man. All them black boy tink each morning they go look him. Cappy Maxwell say he lib for heah, and them boy believe him."

Dane glanced at the dejected objects, even then staring down expectantly into the drifting mist, then at the tally of days that would never be wholly forgotten which he had scored on a post of the stockade. A deeper notch marked each seventh, and after many calculations he had gashed a few across to indicate the probable date of Maxwell's departure from Little Mahu. The black men did not understand the meaning of those scores and regarded the making of them as a religious ceremony, but Dane fancied that Maxwell might understand if he reached the camp too late. Then, perhaps because he was overwrought, he became conscious of an extravagant pride in his friend. Those half-naked Africans had waited, trusting in Maxwell's promise patiently and long, and trusting it implicitly still. This, it seemed to him, was no small testimony.

"I tink we look Cappy Maxwell one time, sah," Monday began again.

"If he is alive, you will," Dane answered as sturdily. "Stop those boys' chattering. Something is going on down yonder now."

Monday stood up staring at the mist.

"Them parrot scream, sah, and them monkey talk. I tink them dam bushmen lib for come back again."

"Then don't let your boys start shooting until they crawl close in," Dane answered, with an indifference assumed to reassure the rest "Some of those fellows can't hit anything with a gun, and you had better keep a few as a standby in case they come in with a run. Let them wait until the bushmen lib for climb the stockade, and then split their heads with the matchets. You understand me?"

Monday apparently did so, for he moved off with a grin which betokened nothing pleasant for the bushmen; and Dane sat still with his eyes fixed on the forest. Something was evidently happening, but the mist was thick, and he could not see into its dim recesses. His few men were worn down by hunger and continuous watching, and he feared that if the foe pushed the attack with vigor they would certainly get in. There was no doubt that the garrison would make a grim last stand if they did, but that appeared at the best a poor consolation, and Dane became sensible of a coldly murderous indignation against the bushmen.

There was a crackle of undergrowth far below, then a sound as of men splashing through the river which ran high and swollen; but Dane was short of ammunition, and did not consider it advisable to fire blindly into the mist. He felt himself quivering with suspense. Staring down the steep face of the bluff, he waited, ready to drive a bullet through the head of the first assailant who rose out of the vapor. Then the noise ceased altogether, and the ensuing silence became maddening. How long this lasted Dane could never tell, but he grew cold and hot by turns as he waited, until a sound that was wholly unexpected became faintly audible. It was not the rustle made by the passage of a stealthy foe, but more resembled the approach of men marching in some order. While the blood pulsed within him he saw that the camp boys glanced from him to the vapor under the influence of an overwhelming excitement. But though the sound came nearer, the mist, which was thicker than ever, still hid all below, until a negro's head rose out of it, and Dane saw that he carried a hammock pole. Then a wild shout went up, and Monday's yell rang through all the rest:

"Cappy Maxwell lib!"

There was an end of all discipline. Weapons went down clattering, and famishing men, who during many weary days had vainly scanned the forest, poured out through the stockade gate and raced madly down the slope to welcome those who had brought them the long expected help. For a moment Dane stood stupidly still, almost too dazed to realize what had come about, vacantly wondering how Maxwell had forced a passage without firing a shot. Then the contagion seized him and, leaping down from the stockade, he followed the rest. His perceptions were yet clouded by a bewildering sense of relief, but it struck him that the hammock-bearers came on in an ominous silence. When he reached them, Amadu looked at him curiously, as though he would have spoken, but, brushing past, Dane tore the wet matting aside.

Then he stepped suddenly backward, breathless and aghast. Maxwell lay huddled in a limp heap upon the drenched canvas, almost unrecognizable. His face was distorted and shrunken, his jacket reddened in patches, and his lips were cracked and black. His eyes had grown dim and glassy, and when he spoke his very voice seemed changed.

"Have I altered so much that you don't know me, comrade?"

"You have brought us our lives, Carsluith, but God knows I would rather have stayed on here forever than to see you come like this," said Dane.

Maxwell moved a little, and there was the ghost of a smile in his half-dosed eyes.

"I really couldn't help it. I hardly think I shall trouble you long. A bushman back in the forest shot me."

"Don't!" Dane answered hoarsely. "It can't be so bad as that. I won't believe it!"

Maxwell let his hand fall into his comrade's palm as though to convince him.

"I am afraid it is. I have been holding on to my life desperately – because I wanted to see you before I went," he said brokenly.

The touch of his clammy hand struck a cold chill through Dane, who, turning abruptly, bade the hammock boys carry their burden with all speed to the tent. What he saw there convinced him that Carsluith Maxwell had made his last adventurous march, and that the best to be hoped for him was a painless passing to his rest. Maxwell also knew it, and though Dane could say nothing because of the choking sensation in his throat, he looked up at him and nodded.

"Hopeless, isn't it? This case is beyond your skill," he said faintly. "We have been good comrades, but even the best partnership can't last forever. Still, you might do what little you can, for there are things I want to tell you."

Dane went out to seek for his case of drugs, and just then, as if in mockery, a blaze of sunshine beat down on clustering negroes and rain-beaten camp. Swayed by a sudden gust of grief and passion, the man shook his fist at the river and cursed what lay beneath it. It seemed to his overwrought fancy that the stain of blood was on the gold, the blood of the staunchest comrade any man ever starved or fought beside. Though their friendship had been neither lengthy nor demonstrative, the hardships and perils undergone had woven a bond between them that knit them as close as brothers. Nevertheless, Dane had yet to learn all that his comrade had done for him.

Maxwell slept or lapsed into unconsciousness all afternoon, but he revived a little by nightfall, and beckoned his comrade near him. The night was black and hot. Because Dane had given stringent orders, no negro's voice reached them, and they seemed utterly alone, hemmed in by the darkness of Africa. Dane could hear only the river moan below, and he found it necessary to cough huskily, for again, as he remembered one other night when they sat there together filled with bright hopes for the future, an obstruction gathered in his throat. Maxwell told him of his journey, in a low, strained voice, halting for breath at frequent intervals, and every word burned itself into the listener's memory. Maxwell always put things vividly and tersely.

"It was a wonderful march; but I have let you talk too much," said Dane, when he concluded. "So it was by Lilian's help you fitted out the expedition, and she rode all night across the mountains to warn Chatterton. It was what one might have expected. God bless her!"

"Amen," said Maxwell, with full solemnity. "The talking can't make much difference now – I shall have a long rest to-morrow. There is still something I must say, and even if I am blundering it seems best to speak. We are very blind when we think we see most clearly, Hilton."

Dane looked at the speaker with some bewilderment as he let his head fall back on the matting, and lay still gasping. Five long minutes passed before he spoke again.

"Will you raise me a little, Hilton? My breath comes short."

Dane slipped one arm beneath his shoulder before Maxwell continued.

"It is strange that neither of us guessed; but all was for the best, maybe. The knowledge might have severed our friendship – I hardly think much more than that would part us now. Though twice I came near doing so, I never told you that I asked Miss Chatterton to marry me."

It was only by an effort that Dane held his arm motionless so that it still supported the dying man. It seemed the strangest of all the strange happenings that they two should have braved so much together for the love of the same woman.

Maxwell saw his blank surprise, and smiled feebly.

"You asked Lilian Chatterton to marry you?" Dane repeated dazedly.

"Very foolish of me, was it not? But there is no reason for such surprise that I should desire it; and I promptly discovered my folly. I also gathered there was somebody who might please her better. Now you have the simple fact, but as there is an inference you must listen still. How could I have guessed the truth – after what I saw at the Hallows Brig? It appeared impossible to me that any man who had won Miss Chatterton's approval could find pleasure in – "

"Stop!" cried Dane, striving to hold his excitement in check. "You were mistaken, Carsluith. It was only out of pity, and because the imprisonment of her brother would bring destitution upon her, that I met that girl."

"I can take your word," Maxwell said quietly. "That was the one point which troubled me. Strange, isn't it, that on my last night I should talk in this fashion; but when one's grasp on material things grows feeble the others assume their due value. Yes, I loved Lilian Chatterton – as I love her still – though it was madness to think that she, fresh and bright with innocent light-heartedness, could stoop to mate with a somber man like me. But raise me a little. I can't see you clearly, Hilton."

Dane did as he was bidden, and Maxwell continued:

"I want you to remember that it was my fault, Hilton. Miss Chatterton never suspected until I spoke that night we passed you at Hallows Brig. I had a suspicion you admired her before that time, but it vanished completely then. You see how each trivial incident fitted in. She was very gentle, but I knew her decision was final – and still I did not see the truth."

As Maxwell looked into his comrade's eyes a quiver ran through Dane.

"I am bewildered, and it seems brutal to ask you questions now," he said huskily. "But you have more to tell."