CHAPTER IV
THE NEW REPUBLIC
The fighting ended, and promptly both the invaders and the invadedsettled down to the new course of things without further exultation orregret. An hour after it had happened, the capture of the village wasalready regarded as ancient history, and the two white men had got along way on in their discussion on its ultimate fate.
"No," Captain Kettle was saying, "no being king for me, Doctor, thankyou. I've been offered a king's ticket once, and that sickened me of thejob for good and always. The world's evidently been going on too long tostart a new kingdom nowadays, and I'm too much of a conservative to tryand break the rule. No, a republic's the thing, and, as you say, I'm thestronger man of the two of us. Doc, you may sign me on as President."
Dr. Clay turned away his face, and relieved his feelings with a grin.But he very carefully concealed his merriment. He liked Kettle, likedhim vastly; but at the same time he was more than a little scared ofhim, and he had a very accurate notion that the man who failed to takehim seriously about this new scheme, would come in contact with trouble.The scheme was a big one; it purposed setting up a new state in theheart of the Etat du Congo, on territory filched from that power; butthe little sailor was in deadly earnest over the project, and alreadyhe had met with extraordinary luck in the initial stages. Central Africais a country where determined _coups de main_ can sometimes yieldsurprising results.
The recent history of these two vagabond white men cannot be given inthis place with any web of detail. They had gone through theirapprenticeship amongst these African inlands as officers of the CongoFree State; they had been divorced from that service with something ofsuddenness; and a purist might have held that the severance of theirties was complicated with something very near akin to piracy. I knowthat they had been abominably oppressed; I know that Kettle choserunning away with his steamer to the alternative of handcuffs anddisgrace, and a possible hanging to follow; but there was no gettingover the fact that the stern-wheeler was Free State property, and thatthese two had alienated it to their own uses.
The black crew of the launch and the black soldiers on board, someseventy head all told, they had little trouble in dragooning intoobedience. The Central African native never troubles himself much aboutniceties of loyalty, and as the sway of the Congo Free State (or "BuliMatdi," as it is named by the woolly aboriginal), had been brutallytyrannous, the change of allegiance had worried them little. Besides,they had been in contact with Captain Kettle before, and knew him to bethat admirable thing, a Man, and worthy of being served; while Clay,whom they also knew, amused them with his banjo, and held powerful_ju-ju_ in the shape of drugs; and so they went blithely enough wherethey were led or driven, and described themselves as soldiers or slaves,whichever word happened to come handiest. The African of the interiornever worries his head about the terms of his service. So long as he hasplenty of food, and a master to do all the thinking for him, he is quitecontent to work, or steal, or fight, or be killed, as that master seesfit to direct.
The progress of the little stern-wheel steamer on her return journey upthe Haut Congo might also give rise to misapprehension here at home, ifit were described exactly as it happened. There are no ship's chandlersin Central Africa, and it is the custom there, when you lack stores, togo to a village on the bank and requisition anything that is available.The Arab slave-traders who once held the country did this; theprehistoric people before them founded the custom; and the Free Stateauthorities, their lineal descendants, have not seen fit to change thepolicy. At least, they may have done so in theory at Brussels, but outthere, in practice, they have left this matter _in statu quo_.
There is a massive conservatism about the heart of Africa with which itis dangerous to tamper. If you rob a man in that region, he merelyrespects your superior power. If you offer him payments, he promptlysuspects you of weakness, and sets his clumsy mind at work to find themethod by which you may be robbed of whatever you have not voluntarilysurrendered.
"Of course," said Kettle, taking up the thread of his tale again, "it'sunderstood that we run this country for our own advantage first."
"What other object should white men have up-country in Africa?" saidClay. "We don't come here merely for our health."
"But I've got a great notion of treating the people well besides. Whenwe have made a sufficient pile--and, mark you, it must be all in ivory,as there's nothing else of value that can be easy enough handled--weshall clear out for the Coast, one-time. And then we must realize on theivory, and then we can go home and live as Christians again." He staredthrough the doorway of the hut at the aching sunshine beyond. "Oh, Lord!Think of it, Doc--Home! England! Decent clothes! Regular attendance inchapel on Sundays, and your soul well cared for and put into safe goingorder again!"
"Oh, my soul doesn't bother me. But England! that's fine to think about,old man, isn't it? England!" he repeated dreamily. "Yes, I suppose Ishould have to change my name if I did go back. I don't know, though.It'd have blown over by now, perhaps; things do blow over, and if I wentto a new part of the country I expect I could still stick to the oldname, and not be known from Adam. Yes, things do blow over with time,and if you don't make too much stir when you go back. I should have tokeep pretty quiet; but I bet I'd have a good time for all that. Fancythe luxury of having good Glenlivet in a cask again, with a tap half-wayup, after the beastly stuff one got on the coast, or, worse still, whatone gets up here--and that's no whiskey at all!"
"Well, you needn't worry about choosing your home drinks just now," saidKettle. "'Palaver no set' here by a very long chalk yet, and till it isyou'll have to go sober, my lad, and keep a very clear head."
Clay came to earth again. "Sorry, Skipper," he said, "but you set meoff. 'Tisn't often I look across at either to-morrow or yesterday. Asyou say, it's a very dry shop this, and so the sooner we get what wewant and quit, the sooner we shall hit on a good time again. And thesooner we clear out, too, the less chance we have of those beastlyBelgians coming in here to meddle. You know we've had luck so far, andthey haven't interfered with us. But we can't expect that for always.The Congo Free State's a trading corporation, with dividends to make forthe firm of Leopold and Co., in Brussels, and they don't like traderivals. What stealing can be done in the country, they prefer to dothemselves."
"When the time comes," said the little sailor grimly, "we shall be readyfor them, and if they interfere with me, I shall make the Congo FreeState people sit up. But in the mean while they are not here, and Idon't see that they need be expected. They can trace us up the Congofrom Leopoldville, if you like, by the villages we stopped at--one,we'll say, every two hundred miles--but then we find this new river, andwhere are we? The river's not charted; it's not known to any of the FreeState people, or I, being in their steamboat service, would have beentold of it; and the entrance is so well masked at its Congo end byislands, that no one would guess it was there. The Congo's twenty mileswide where our river comes in, and very shallow, and thesteamer-channel's right at the further bank. If they'd anotherEnglishman in their service up here, I'd not say; but don't you tell methat the half-baked Dutchmen and Dagos who skipper their launches wouldrisk hunting out a new channel, and blunder on it that way."
"No," said Clay, "I'm with you there. But word travels amongst thenatives. You can't get over that."
"That's where the risk comes in. But I've done my best to make ittravel slow. I've got hold of that beast of a witch-doctor, who deserveshanging anyway for all the poor wretches he's killed, and I've told himthat as soon as word slips out downriver of our being here, he'll getshot, one-time. He's a man of influence, that witch-doctor, and Ishouldn't wonder but what he makes the natives keep their heads shut forquite a long time."
"It may be professional prejudice, but I rather hope that localpractitioner gets his gruel somehow before we clear out." Clay shivered."He's a cruel devil. Remember the remains of those two poor sacrificedwretches we found when we got here?"
Kettle shrugged his shoulders. "I
know. But what could one do? Niggersalways are like that when they're left to play about alone--as thesehere have been, I suppose, since Creation Day. We couldn't pin thesacrifices on to the witch-doctor, or else, of course, we'd have strunghim up. We could only just give him an order for these customs to stopone-time, and stand by to see it carried out. But we start the thingfrom now, on fresh, sensible lines. We're going to have no foolery aboutthe nigger being as good as a white man. He isn't, and no man that eversaw him where he grows ever thought so."
"Speaking scientifically," said Clay, "it has always struck me that anigger is an animal placed by the scheme of creation somewhere between amonkey and a white man. You might bracket him, say, with a Portugee."
"About that," said Kettle; "and if you treat him as more, you make himinto a bad failure, whereas if he's left alone, he's a bit nasty andcruel. Now I think, Doc, there's a middle course, and that's what I'mgoing to try here whilst we're making our pile. We've grabbed four tidyvillages already, and that makes a good beginning for this new republic;and when we've got things organized a bit more, and have a trifle oftime, we can grab some others. And, by James! Doc, there's a name foryou--the New Republic!"
"I seem to think it's been used in a book somewhere."
"The New Republic!" Kettle repeated relishingly. "It goes well. It'scertain to have been used before, but it's good enough to be used again.Some day, perhaps, it'll have railways, and public-houses, and a postalservice, and some day it may even issue stamps of its own."
"With your mug in the middle!"
Captain Kettle reddened. "I don't see why not," he said stiffly. "Istarted the show, and by James! whilst I'm running it, the NewRepublic's got to hum; and when I'm gone, I shall be remembered as someone out of the common. I'm a man, Doctor Clay, that's got a high senseof duty. I should think it wrong to stay here sweating ivory out ofthese people, if I didn't put something into them in return."
"Well, you do seem to have got a hold over them, and that's a fact, andI guess you will be able to make them--" he broke off, and burst into acackle of laughter. "Oh, my Christian aunt, look there!"
A mob of natives were reverently approaching the hut, two of themcarrying skinny chickens. The witch-doctor led the advance. Kettleguessed what was intended, and got up from his seat to interfere.
"Oh, look here, Skipper," Clay pleaded, "don't spoil the show. Let's dothe traveller for once, and observe the 'interesting native customs.'You needn't be afraid; they're going to sacrifice the bigger hen to you,right enough."
Captain Kettle allowed himself to be persuaded, and sat back again. Themob of negroes came up to the doorway of the hut, and the witch-doctor,with many prostrations to the little sailor, made a long speech. Thenthe larger of the two fowls entered into the ceremony, and was slainwith a sword, and the witch-doctor, squatting on the ground, readthe omens.
Kettle accepted the homage with glum silence, evidently restraininghimself, but when Clay's turn came, and the smaller and scraggier of thechickens yielded up life in his honor, he hitched up his feet, andsquatted cross-legged on the chair, and held up his hand palm outward,after the manner of some grotesque Chinese idol. A sense of the absurdwas one of the many things which had hampered this disreputable doctorall through his unlucky career.
The negroes, however, took it all in good part, and in time theydeparted, well satisfied. But Kettle wore a gloomy face.
"Funny, wasn't it?" said Clay.
"I call it beastly," Kettle snapped. "This sort of thing's got to stop.I'm not going to have my new Republic dirtied by shows like that."
"Well," said Clay flippantly, "if you will set up as a little tin god onwheels, you must expect them to say their prayers to you."
"I didn't do anything of the kind. I merely stepped in and conqueredthem."
"Put it as you please, old man. But there's no getting over it thatthat's what they take you for."
"Then, by James! it comes to this: they shall be taught the real thing!"
"What, you'll import a missionary?"
"I shall wade in and teach them myself."
"Phew!" whistled Clay. "If you're going to start the New Jerusalem gameon the top of the New Republic, I should say you'll have yourhands full."
"Probably," said Kettle grimly; "but I am equal to that."
"And you'll not have much time left to see after ivory palaver."
"I shall go on collecting the ivory just the same. I shall combinebusiness with duty. And"--here he flushed somewhat--"I'm going to takethe bits of souls these niggers have got, and turn them into thestraight path."
Clay rubbed his bald head. "If you're set on it," said he, "you'll doit; I quite agree with you there. But I should have thought you'd seenenough of the nigger to know what a disastrous animal he is after someof these missionaries have handled him."
"Yes," said Kettle; "but those were the wrong sort of missionary--wrongsort of man to begin with; wrong sort of religion also."
And then, to Dr. Clay's amazement, his companion broke out into aviolent exposition of his own particular belief. It was the first timehe had ever heard Kettle open his lips on the subject of religion, andthe man's vehemence almost scared him. Throughout the time they had beenacquainted, he had taken him to be like all other lay white men on theCongo, quite careless on the subject, and an abhorrer of missions andall their output; and, lo! here was an enthusiast, with a violent creedof his very own, and with ranting thunders to heave at all who differedfrom him by so much as a hairs-breadth. Here was a devotee who suddenly,across a great ocean of absence, remembered the small chapel in SouthShields, where during shore days he worshipped beside his wife andchildren. Here was a prophet, jerked by circumstances into being,trumpeting the tenets of an obscure sect with something very near toinspiration.
He preached and preached on till the tropical day burned itself out, andthe velvety night came down, and with it the mists from the river. Thenegroes of the village, with their heads wrapped up to keep off theghosts, shivered as they listened to "dem small whiteman make ju-ju"across the clearing. Clay listened because he could not get away. Heknew the man well, yes, intimately; he was constantly dealing him outunpalatable flippancies; but in this new, this exalted mood, he did notcare to do less than give attention.
The man seemed to have changed; his eyes were bright and feverish; hisface was drawn; his voice had lost its shipmaster's brusqueness, and hadacquired the drone of the seaman's shore conventicle. There was no doubtabout his earnestness; in Clay's mind, there was no doubt about thecomplications which would ensue from it.
When Dr. Clay lay down on his bed that night, his mind was big withforeboding. Ever since that entanglement with the woman occurred, whichruined forever his chance of practicing in England, he had gone his waywith a fine recklessness as to consequences. He had lived for the day,and the day only; he had got to the lowest peg on the medical scale;and any change would be an improvement. He carried with him anincomplete case of instruments, a wire-strung banjo, and a fine taste inliquor and merriment as stock-in-trade, and if any of the many shapeswhich Death assumes in the Congo region came his way, why there he wasready to journey on.
But during these last weeks a chance had appeared of returning toEngland with a decent competency, and he jumped at it with an eagernesswhich only those who have at one time or other "gone under" themselvescan appreciate. In effect he had entered into a partnership with CaptainOwen Kettle over a filibustering expedition--although they gave thething different names--and from the first their ivory raiding had beenextraordinarily successful. If only they could collect on undisturbedfor another six months at the same rate, and then get their spoils downto the coast and shipped, the pair of them stepped into a snugcompetence at once. But this latest vagary of his partner's seemed topromise disruption of the whole enterprise. He did not see how Kettlecould possibly carry out this evangelizing scheme, on which he had sosuddenly gone crazed, without quite neglecting his othercommercial duties.
However, in the course of
the next day or so, as he witnessed CaptainKettle's method of spreading his faith, Clay's forebodings began to passaway. There was nothing of the hypocrite about this preaching sailor;but, at the same time, there was nothing of the dreamer. He exhortedvast audiences daily to enter into the narrow path (as defined by theTyneside chapel), but, at the same time, he impressed on them that theprivilege of treading this thorny way in no manner exempted them fromthe business of gathering ivory, by one means or another, for himselfand partner.
Kettle had his own notions as to how this proselytizing should becarried on, and he set about it with a callous disregard for modernprecedent. He expounded his creed--the creed of the obscure Tynesidechapel--partly in Coast-English, partly in the native, partly throughthe medium of an interpreter, and he commanded his audience to acceptit, much as he would have ordered men under him to have carried out thebusiness of shipboard. If any one had doubts, he explainedfurther--once. But he did not allow too many doubts. One or two whoinquired too much felt the weight of his hand, and forthwith thepercentage of sceptics decreased marvellously.
Clay watched on, non-interferent, hugging himself with amusement, butnot daring to let a trace of it be seen. "And I thought," he kepttelling himself with fresh spasms of suppressed laughter, "that thatman's sole ambition was to set up here as a sort of robber baron, andhere he's wanting to be Mahomet as well. The crescent or the sword;Kettleism or kicks; it's a pity he hasn't got some sense of humor,because as it is I've got all the fun to myself. He'd eat me if I toldhim how it looked to an outsider."
Once, with the malicious hope of drawing him, he did venture to suggestthat Kettle's method of manufacturing converts was somewhat sudden andarbitrary, and the little sailor took him seriously at once.
"Of course it is," said he. "And if you please, why shouldn't it be? Myintelligence is far superior to theirs at the lowest estimate; andtherefore I must know what's best for them. I order them to becomemembers of my chapel, and they do it."
"They do it like birds," Clay admitted. "You've got a fine grip overthem."
"I think they respect me."
"Oh, they think you no end of a fine man. In fact they consider you, asI've said before, quite a little tin--"
"Now stop it, Doc. I know you're one of those fellows that don't meanhalf they say, but I won't have that thrown against me, even in jest."
"Well," said Clay, slily, "there's no getting over the fact that someperson or persons unknown sacrificed a hen up against the door of thishut under cover of last night, and I guess they're not likely to wastethe fowl on me."
"One can't cure them of their old ways all at once," said Kettle, with afrown.
"And some genius," Clay went on, "has carved a little wooden image introusers and coat, nicely whitewashed, and stuck up on that old _ju-ju_tree down there by the swamp. I saw it when I was down there thismorning. Of course, it mayn't be intended to be a likeness of you,skipper, but it's got a pith helmet on, which the up-country niggerdoesn't generally add to portraits of himself; and moreover, it'swearing a neat torpedo beard on the end of its chin, delicately coloredvermilion."
"Well?" said Kettle sourly.
"Oh, that had got a hen sacrificed in front of it, too, that's all. Irecognize the bird; he was a game old rooster that used to crow at meevery time I passed him."
"Beastly pagans," Kettle growled. "There's no holding some of them yet.They suck up the glad tidings like mother's milk at first, and they'reback at their old ways again before you've taught them the tune of ahymn. I just want to catch one or two of these backsliders. By James!I'll give them fits in a way they won't forget."
But if Captain Kettle was keen on the conversion of the heathen to thetenets of the Tyneside chapel, he was by no means forgetful of hiscommercial duties. He had always got Mrs. Kettle, the family, and thebeauties of a home life in an agricultural district at the back of hismind, and to provide the funds necessary for a permanent enjoyment ofall these items close at hand, he worked both Clay and himselfremorselessly.
Ivory does not grow on hedgerows even in Africa, and the necessary storecould by no means be picked up even in a day, or even in a matter ofweeks. Ivory has been looked upon by the African savage, from timeimmemorial, not as an article of use, but as currency, and as such it isvaguely revered. He does not often of his own free will put it intocirculation; in fact, his life may well pass without his once seeing itused as a purchasing medium; but custom sits strong on him, and he likesto have it by him. An African chief of any position always has his storeof ivory, usually hidden, sometimes in the bush, sometimes buried--forchoice, under the bed of a stream. It is foolish of him, this custom,because it is usually the one thing that attracts the white man to hisneighborhood, and the white man's visits are frequently fraught withdisaster; but it is a custom, and therefore he sticks to it. He is nota highly reasoning animal, this Central African savage.
The African, moreover, is used to oppression--that is, he eitheroppresses or is oppressed--and he is dully callous to death. So thevillages were not much surprised at Kettle's descents upon them, andusually surrendered to him passively on the mere prestige of his name.They were pleasantly disappointed that he omitted the usual massacre,and in gratitude were eager to accept what they were pleased to term his_ju-ju_, but which he described as the creed of the Tyneside chapel.
They reduced him to frenzy about every second day by surreptitiouslysacrificing poultry in his honor; but he did not dare to make any veryviolent stand against this overstepping of the rubric, lest (as washinted to him) they should misinterpret his motive, and substitute aplump nigger baby for the more harmless spring chicken. It is by nomeans easy to follow the workings of the black man's brain inthese matters.
But all the time he went on gathering ivory--precious ivory, worth asmuch as a thousand pounds a ton if he could but get it home. Some of ithad been buried for centuries, and was black-brown with age and theearth; some was new, and still bloody-ended and odorous; but he figuredit all out into silk dresses for Mrs. Kettle, and other luxuries forthose he loved, and gloated even over the little _escribellos_ which layabout on the village refuse heaps as not being worthy to hide with thelarger tusks.
And, between-whiles, he preached to the newly conquered, ordered them toadopt the faith of the South Shields chapel, and finally sang themhymns, which he composed himself especially to suit their needs, to thetunes of "Hold the Fort," and "From Greenland's Icy Mountains," which heplayed very sweetly on the accordion. Captain Kettle might be very keenafter business, but at the same time it could never be laid to hischarge that he was ever forgetful of the duty he owed to the souls ofthese heathen who came under his masterful thumb.
Dr. Clay, however, watched all the proceedings now with a jubilant mind.As a political division, the much-talked-of New Republic might be saidto lack cohesion, but as a conquered tract of country it was verypleasantly in awe of Captain Kettle. A very comfortable store of ivorywas stored in the principal hut of each village they came to, whichClay, who commanded the rear guard, always took care to "put _ju-ju_ on"after his senior officer at the head of the force had marched out of thevillage _en route_ for the next, that being the most satisfactoryfashion of warding off pilferers. And last but not least, they hadagreed upon their route of exit to a sea-coast, and (in theory at anyrate) considered it eminently practicable.
The Congo, of course, _via_ Leopoldville, Matadi, and Banana was barredto them, on account of their trouble with the Free State authorities.Their original idea had been to cross the great continent eastward byway of the Great Lakes, and take shipping somewhere by Mozambique orZanzibar. But the barbarous difficulties of that route daunted evenKettle, when they began to consider it in detail, and the advantages ofthe French Congo territory showed up brightly in comparison.
They still had the little stern-wheel steamer that was filched--I begtheir pardon, captured from the Free State, and in her, with the loot onboard, they must creep down the Congo again, almost to Stanley Pool,steaming by night only, h
iding at the back of islands during the days,always avoiding observation. And then they must strike across countrydue west, till they made the head-waters of the Ogowe, and so down tothe sea, fighting a way through whatever tribes tried to impede them.The French Customs would take their toll of the ivory, of course, butthat could not be helped; but after that, a decent steamer again, andthe sea, and home. It was an appetizing prospect.
But castles in the clouds have been built before, and often it is theunexpected that sets them trundling; and in this case such an ordinaryoccurrence as a tornado stepped into the reckoning and split thissighed-for edifice of success and prosperity with all completeness.
There had been no tornado to clear the atmosphere for nine whole days,and the country was unendurable accordingly. The air was stagnant withheat, and reeked with the lees of stale vegetation. The sky overhead wasfull of lurid haze, which darkened the afternoon almost to a twilight,and in the texture of this haze, indicated rather than definitely seen,was a constant nicker of lightning. It was the ordinary heat-lightningof the tropics, which is noiseless, but it somehow seemed to send outlittle throbs into the baking air, till, at times, to be alive was for awhite man almost intolerable.
THE LITTLE ARMY COULD ONLY MARCH IN SINGLE FILE.]
Under this discomfort, a predatory column was marching on from onecaptured village to another, whose possible store of ivory had so farnot been gleaned. The road was the ordinary African bush-path, intenselywinding and only foot-sole wide; the little army, with Kettle at itshead, could only march in single file, and Clay, who brought up thestraggling rear, sweated and panted quite half a mile behind his leader.
Every one knew the tornado was approaching, and both the worn andhaggard white men and the sweating, malodorous blacks hoped for it withequal intensity. For be it known that the tropical tornado passesthrough the stale baked air at intervals, like some gigantic sieve,dredging out its surplus heat and impurities. The which is a necessityof Nature; else even the black man could not endure in those regions.
And in due time, though it lingered most cruelly in its approach, thetornado burst upon them, coming with an insane volley of rain and windand sound, that filled the forests with crashings, and sent the parchedearth flying in vicious mud-spirts. In a Northern country such a furiousoutburst would have filled people with alarm; but here, in the tropicwilderness, custom had robbed the tornado of its dignity; and no one wasawed. Indeed the blacks fairly basked in its violence, turning theirglistening bodies luxuriously under the great ropes of rain.
The march stopped at the first outbreak of the squall. Kettle bolted toa rock ahead of him, and squatted down in a dry lee, sucking up greatdraughts of the new cool air. There are times when a drop of fivedegrees of temperature can bring earthly bliss of a quality almostunimaginable. And there he stayed, philosophically waiting till thetornado should choose to blow itself out.
The wind had started with a roar and a sudden squall, reaching the fullclimax of its strength in a matter of thirty seconds, and then withequal hurry it ended, leaving the country it had scoured full of afresh, cool, glistening calm. Kettle rose to his feet, shook his clothesinto shape, and gave the order to start.
The black soldiers stepped out in his wake, and for half a mile hestrode at their head through the new-made mud of the path. But then hewas suddenly brought up all standing. Word had been tediously handeddown the long straggling line of men that there had been an accident inthe rear; that a great tree had fallen to the blast; and finally that"dem dokitar, he lib for die."
Swiftly Kettle turned, and worked his way back down the narrow lane ofthe path. The negroes he hustled against watched him with stupid stares,but he gave them little notice. Leaving out the facts that Clay was hisonly white companion and assistant, he had grown strangely to like theman, and the vague report of the accident filled him with morethan dismay.
He had over a mile to go before he came upon the scene, and when he didget there he found that the first report had exaggerated. Clay was notdead, but he lay unconscious on the ground, pinned there by a greatcotton-wood which had crashed down before the fury of the wind, andwhich had fallen across his right leg. To move the tree was animpossibility; but with a sailor's resourcefulness Kettle set his men todig beneath it, so that the imprisoned leg might be released that way;and himself gave them a lead.
Clay, fortunately for himself, remained the whole time in a state ofblank unconsciousness, and at last he was released, but with his leghorribly mangled. A hammock had meanwhile been rigged, and in this hewas carried back to the village from which they had set out. Kettle ledthe retreat in front of the hammock bearers. He left his force ofsoldiers and carriers to follow, or straggle, or desert, as theypleased. The occupation of ivory raiding had completely passed from hismind; he had forgotten his schemes of wholesale conversion; he hadnothing but Clay's welfare left at his heart.
He got the wounded man under cover of one of the village huts, andthere, with the help of stimulants, poor Clay's senses came back to him,He was lividly pale with pain and the shock, but he was game to thebackbone, and made no especial complaint. Indeed, he was rather disposedto treat the whole thing humorously.
"All the result of having a musical ear," he explained. "I made the boywho carried it put my banjo in a hollow of that tree out of the wet, andwhen I saw the old stick was going to crash down, I made a grab for the'jo, and got it right enough. Well, I wasn't sufficiently nippy injumping out of the way, it seems, and as the old banjo's busted forgood, I shall have to trouble you for a funeral march on theaccordion, Skipper."
"Funeral be hanged!" said Kettle. "You're worth a whole cemetery full ofdead men yet."
"Speaking as a doctor," said Clay cheerfully, "I may tell you that yourunprofessional opinion is rot. Now, if I'd a brother sawbones here toperform amputation, I might have a chance--say, one in a thousand."
"Your leg ought to be cut off?"
"Just there, above the knee. That'll mortify in twenty hours from now.Thank the Lord I never wasted much morphia on the niggers. There'splenty in stock. So it won't worry me much."
"Look here," said Kettle, "I will cut that leg off for you."
"You! My good Skipper, you're a handy man, I know, but what the blazesdo you know about amputation?"
"You've got to teach me. You can show me the tools to use, and drawdiagrams of where the arteries come."
"By the powers, I've a great mind to. There's something pretty rich ingiving an amputation lecture with one's own femorals as a subject."
"You'd better," said Kettle grimly, "or I shall cut it off without beingtaught. I like you a lot too well, my man, to let you die for want of abit of help."
And so, principally because the grotesqueness of the situation appealedto his whimsical sense of humor, Clay forthwith proceeded to pose as ananatomy demonstrator addressing a class, and expounded the whole art ofamputation, handling the utensils of the surgeon's craft with the gustoof an expert, and never by shudder or sigh showing a trace of the whitefeather. He carried the whole thing through with a genial gayety,pointing his sentences now with a quip, now with some roguish sparkle ofprofanity, and finally he announced that the lecture was complete andover, and then he nodded familiarly at his wounded limb.
"By-bye, old hoof!" he said. "You've helped carry the rest of me intosome queer scrapes, one time and another. But we've had good timestogether, as well as bad, you and I, and anyway, I'm sorry to lose you.And now, skipper," said he, "get off your coat and wade in. I've put onthe Esmarch's bandage for you. Don't be niggardly with thechloroform--I've got a good heart. And remember to do what I told youabout that femoral artery, and don't make a mistake there, or elsethere'll be a mess on the floor. Shake hands, old man, and good luck toyour surgery; and anyway, thank you for your trouble."
I fancy that I have made it clear before that Captain Kettle was a manpossessed not only of an iron nerve, but also of all a sailor'shandiness with his fingers; but here was a piece of work that requiredall his coolness a
nd dexterity. At home, on an operating table, witheverything at hand that antiseptic surgery could provide, with highlytrained surgeons and highly trained nurses in goodly numbers, it wouldhave been a formidable undertaking; but there, among those savagesurroundings, in that awful loneliness which a white man feels so faraway from all his kin, it was a very different matter.
It makes me shiver when I think how that little sailor must haverealized his risks and his responsibility. It was a situation that wouldhave fairly paralyzed most men. But from what can be gathered from thelast letter that the patient ever wrote, it is clear that Kettle carriedout the operation with indomitable firmness and decision; and if indeedsome of his movements were crude, he had grasped all the main points ofhis hurried teaching, and he made no single mistake of any but pedanticimportance.
Clay woke up from the anaesthetic, sick, shaken, but still courageous asever. "Well," he gasped, "you've made a fine dot-and-go-one of me,Skipper, and that's a fact. When you chuck the sea, and get back toEngland, and set up in a snug country practice as general practitioner,you'll be able to look back on your first operation with pride."
Kettle, shaken and white, regarded him from a native stool in the middleof the hut. "I can't think," he said, "how any men can be doctors whilstthere's still a crossing to sweep."
"Oh," said Clay, "you're new at it now, and a bit jolted up. But thetrade has its points. I'll argue it out with you some day. But just atpresent I'm going to try and sleep. I'm a bit jolted up, too."
Now, it is a melancholy fact to record that Dr. Clay did not pull roundagain after his accident and the subsequent operation. To any one whoknows the climate, the reason will be easily understood. In that heatedair of Central Equatorial Africa, tainted with all manner of harmfulgerms, a scratch will take a month to heal, and any considerable fleshwound may well prove a death warrant. Captain Kettle nursed his patientwith a woman's tenderness, and Clay himself struggled gamely against hisfate; but the ills of the place were too strong for him, and theinevitable had to be.
But the struggle was no quick thing of a day, or even of a week. The manlingered wirily on, and in the mean while Kettle saw the marvellouspolitical structure, which with so much labor and daring he had builtup, crumbling to pieces, as it were, before his very eyes. A company ofArab slave-traders had entered the district, and were recapturing hissubject villages one by one.
At the first attack runners came to him imploring help. It was uselessto send his half-baked soldiers without going himself. They knew noother leader; there was not a negro among them fit to take a command;and he himself was tied. He said nothing to Clay, but just sent arefusal, and remained at his post.
Again and again came clamorous appeals for help against these newinvaders, and again and again he had to give the same stubborn refusal.His vaunted New Republic was being split up again into its primitiveelements; the creed of the South Shields chapel was being submergedunder a wave of red-hot Mohammedanism; and the ivory, that hard-earnedivory, with all its delicious potentialities, was once more being liftedby alien raiders, and this time forever beyond his reach.
Clay got some inkling of what was going on, and repeatedly urged him tobe off at once and put things straight in person. "Don't you worry aboutme, Skipper," he'd say. "I'll get along here fine by myself. Nobody'llcome to worry me. And if they did, they'd let me alone. I'm far toounwholesome-looking to chop just now."
But Kettle always stolidly refused to leave him. Indeed, with difficulty(for he was at all times a painfully truthful man) he used to lie to hispatient and say that there was no need for him to go at all; thateverything was going on quite as they could wish; and that he was vastlyenjoying the relaxation of a holiday.
But in sober fact things were going very much awry. And every day theygot worse. Even his original bevy of troops, those he had brought upwith him into the country on the stern-wheel launch, seemed to graspthe fact that his star was in the descendant. There was no open mutiny,for they still feared him too much personally to dare that; but in theblack unwatched nights they stole away from the village, and every daytheir numbers thinned, and the villagers followed their lead; and whenthe end came, the two lonely white men had the village to themselves.
Clay's last words were typical of him. Kettle, with devotional intent,had been singing some hymn to him, which he had composed as beingsuitable for the occasion. But the dying man's ears were dulled, and hemistook both air and words. "You're a good fellow to sing me that," hewhispered. "I know you don't like striking up that sort of music. ByJove! I heard that song last at the Pav. Good old Piccadilly Circus."
And then a little later: "I say, Skipper. I'm close on the peg-out.There's a girl in Winchester--but hang her, anyway. No, you've been mybest pal. You're to have all my share of the loot--the ivory, I mean.You savvy, I leave it to you in my last will and testament, fairly andsquarely. And Skipper, I'm sorry I ragged you about your mug on thoseNew Republic stamps. If ever a man deserved what he wanted in that line,you're--you're--"
The voice failed. "Yes?" said Kettle, and stooped nearer.
Clay feebly winked. "You're him," he whispered. "So long, old cock."
Captain Kettle buried his friend in the first gold of the next dawnunder a magnolia tree, which was hung with sweet-scented blossoms, inthe middle of the village. During the heat of the day he composed a copyof verses to his memory, and when the sun had dropped somewhat, he wentout with his knife to carve them on the tree above the grave.
It appeared that the village was not so completely deserted as seemed tothe eye, or, at any rate, that he had been watched. On the newly turnedearth was a chicken, which had been sacrificed in the orthodox fashion;and for once he beheld the sight without resentment.
He raised his hat to the dead, and "Doc," he said, "this hen-killing isbang against my principles, but I won't say anything now. I guess it'ssome nigger's way of showing respect to you, and, by James! you're afellow that ought to be admired. If only it hadn't been for that treefalling down, there'd have been two men round here that would have lefttheir mark on Africa, and you're one of them. Well, old man, you'regone, and I hope you're looking down this moment--or up, as the case maybe--to read this bit of poetry I'm going to stick above your head. It'sworth attention. It's about the best sample of rhyme I everhoisted out."