CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.
HOW WE MADE FURTHER PLANS.
"Why, Joe, my lad," he said at last, in a voice I did not recognise, itwas so full of emotion, "you've driven me half-wild. How could you getin such a fix?"
"Jimmy get in big fix," said an ill-used voice. "Nobody glad to seeJimmy."
"I'm glad to feel you," drawled a well-known voice. "I can't see you.How are you, Joe Carstairs? Where have you been?"
"Jack, old fellow, I'm glad!" I cried, and I grasped his hands.
"That will do," said the doctor sternly. "Are the savages after you,Joe?"
"Yes, in full pursuit, I think," I said. "But my guide. I can't leavehim."
"Your guide? Where is he?"
"I don't know. He was here just now. He brought us here."
"Jimmy-Jimmy say um goes back along," said the black. "He no top, bigfright. Gyp bite um."
"One of the blacks, Joe?" said the doctor.
"No, no!" I said, so excited that I could hardly speak coherently. "Awhite man--a prisoner among the blacks--like a savage, but--"
"No, no," said Jimmy in a disgusted tone; "no like savage blackfellow-fellow. Got a dust in head. No tink a bit; all agone."
"His mind wanders, being a prisoner," I stammered. "He is with theblacks--a prisoner--with my father."
"What?" cried the doctor.
"He has a fellow-prisoner," I faltered. "I am not sure--it must be--myfather!"
"Mass Joe find um fader all along," said the black. "Jimmy find umtoo."
"Be silent!" cried the doctor. "Do I understand aright, Joe, that yourfather is a prisoner with the people from whom you have escaped?"
"Yes--I think so--I am not sure--I feel it is so," I faltered.
"Humph!"
"Have you seen him?"
"No," I said. "I did not know he was there till I was escaping."
"Jimmy see um. All rightums. Find Mass Joe fader."
"You saw him, Jimmy?" I panted.
"Iss. Yes, Jimmy see him. Big long hair beard down um tummuck."
"You have seen him--the prisoner?" said the doctor.
"Yes; iss Jimmy see um. Shut up all along. Sittum down, um look atground all sleep, sleep like wallaby, wallaby."
"He means the poor fellow who helped us to escape," I said sadly.
"Jimmy see Mass Joe fader," cried the black indignantly. "Jimmy take umright long show um."
"The man who brought us here?"
"No, no, no, no!" cried Jimmy, dancing with vexation. "Not, not. Jimmysee um Mass Joe fader sit all along. See froo hole. Big long bearddown um tummuck--long hair down um back. Um shake um head so, so. Say`hi--hi--ho--hum. Nev see home again. Ah, my wife! Ah, my boy!'"
"You heard him say that, Jimmy?" I cried, catching him by the arm.
"Jimmy sure, sure. Jimmy look froo hole. Den fro little tone an hitum, and den black fellow come along, and Jimmy lay fas' sleep, eye shut,no move bit."
"He has seen him, Joe," cried the doctor. "He could not have inventedthat."
There was a low whining growl here again from Gyp, and Jack Pennydrawled:
"I say, sha'n't we all be made prisoners if we stop here?"
"Quick!" said the doctor; "follow me."
"And our guide?" I cried.
"We must come in search of him another time. If he has been with theblacks for long he will know how to protect himself."
I was unwilling to leave one who had helped us in such a time of need;but to stay meant putting ourselves beyond being able to rescue myfather, if it were really he who was our guide's fellow-prisoner. Theresult, of course, was that I followed the doctor, while a snufflingwhine now and then told us that Gyp was on in front, and, in spite ofthe darkness, leading the way so well that there seemed to be nodifficulty.
"Where are we going?" I said, after a pause, during which we had beenlistening to the cries of the savages, which appeared to come fromseveral directions.
"To our hiding-place," said the doctor. "Jimmy found it before we losthim, and we have kept to it since, so as to be near you."
"But how did you know you were near me?" I said.
"Through Gyp first. He went away time after time, and I suspected thathe had found you, so one day we followed him and he led us to thevillage."
"Yes?" I said.
"Then we had to wait. I sent messages to you by him; and at last I gotyour answer. To-night we were coming again to try and reach you,perhaps get you away. We meant to try. I should not have gone backwithout you, my lad," he said quietly.
The cries now seemed distant, and we went slowly on through thedarkness--slowly, for the trees were very close and it required greatcare to avoid rushing against them; but the doctor seemed to have madehimself acquainted with the forest, and he did not hesitate till all atonce the shouts of the blacks seemed to come from close by upon ourright, and were answered directly from behind us.
"A party of them have worked round," whispered the doctor. "Keep cool.They cannot know we are so near. Hist! crouch down."
We were only just in time, for hardly had we crouched down close to theground than the sound of the savages pushing forward from tree to treewas heard.
I could not understand it at first, that curious tapping noise; but asthey came nearer I found that each man lightly tapped every tree hereached, partly to avoid it, by the swinging of his waddy, partly as aguide to companions of his position.
They came closer and closer, till it seemed that they must either see ortouch us, and I felt my heart beat in heavy dull throbs as I longed forthe rifle that these people had taken from me when they made meprisoner.
I heard a faint rustle to my right, and I knew it was Jimmy preparingfor a spring. I heard a slight sound on my left just as the nearestsavage uttered a wild cry, and I knew that this was the lock of a gunbeing cocked. Then all was silent once more.
Perhaps the savages heard the faint click, and uttered a warning, forthe tapping of the trees suddenly ceased, and not the faintest soundcould be heard.
This terrible silence lasted quite five minutes. It seemed to me likean hour, and all the while we knew that at least a dozen armed savagewarriors were within charging distance, and that discovery meant certaincaptivity, if not death.
I held my breath till I felt that when I breathed again I should utter aloud gasp and be discovered. I dared not move to bury my face in myhands or in the soft earth, and my sensations were becoming agonising,when there was a sharp tap on a tree, so near that I felt the groundquiver. The tap was repeated to right and left, accompanied by acurious cry that sounded like "Whai--why!" and the party swept on.
"A narrow escape!" said the doctor, as we breathed freely once more."Go on, Gyp. Let's get to earth; we shall be safer there."
I did not understand the doctor's words then, but followed in silence,with Jack Penny coming close up to me whenever he found the way open, totell me of his own affairs.
"My back's a deal better," he whispered. "I've been able to rest itlately--waiting for you, and it makes it stronger, you know, and--"
"Silence, Penny!" said the doctor reprovingly, and Jack fell back a fewfeet; and we travelled on, till suddenly, instead of treading upon thesoft decayed-leaf soil of the forest, I found that we were rustlingamong bushes down a steep slope. Then we were amongst loose stones, andas the darkness was not quite so dense I made out by sight as well as bythe soft trickling sound, that a little rivulet was close to our feet.
This we soon afterwards crossed, and bidding me stoop the doctor led theway beneath the dense bushes for some little distance before we seemedto climb a stony bank, and then in the intense darkness he took me bythe shoulders and backed me a few steps.
"There's quite a bed of branches there," he said aloud. "You can speakout, we are safe here;" and pressing me down I sat upon the soft twigsthat had been gathered together, and Jack Penny came and lay down besideme, to talk for a time and then drop off to sleep, an example I musth
ave followed. For all at once I started and found that it was broaddaylight, with the loud twittering song of birds coming from the bushesat the entrance of what seemed to be a low-roofed extensive cave, whosemouth was in the shelving bank of a great bluff which overhung asilvery-sounding musical stream.
Some light came in from the opening; but the place was made bright bythe warm glow that came from a kind of rift right at the far end of thecave, and through this was also wafted down the sweet forest scents.
"Jimmy's was a lucky find for us," said the doctor, when I had partakenof the food I found they had stored there, and we had talked over ourposition and the probability of my belief being correct. "It is shelteras well as a stronghold;" and he pointed to the means he had taken tostrengthen the entrance, by making our black followers bind together thebranches of the tangled shrubs that grew about the mouth.
In the talk that ensued it was decided that we would wait a couple ofdays, and then go by night and thoroughly examine the village. Jimmywould be able to point out the hut where my father was confined, andthen if opportunity served we would bring him away, lie hidden here fora few days till the heat of the pursuit was over, and then escape backto the coast.
I would not own to the doctor that I had my doubts, and he ownedafterwards to me that his feeling was the same. So we both acted as ifwe had for certain discovered him of whom we came in search, and waitedour time for the first venture.
It was dangerous work hunting for food at so short a distance from thevillage, but our black followers, aided by Jimmy, were very successful,their black skins protecting them from exciting surprise if they wereseen from a distance, and they brought in a good supply of fish everyday simply by damming up some suitable pool in the little stream inwhose bank our refuge was situated. This stream swarmed with fish, andit was deep down in a gully between and arched over by trees. The bowsand arrows and Jimmy's spear obtained for us a few birds, and inaddition they could always get for us a fair supply of fruit, though notquite such as we should have chosen had it been left to us. Roots, too,they brought, so that with the stores we had there was not much prospectof our starving.
In fact so satisfactory was our position in the pleasant temperate cavethat Jack Penny was in no hurry to move.
"We're just as well here as anywhere else," he said; "that is, if we hadfound your father."
"And got him safe here," he added after a pause.
"And the black chaps didn't come after us," he said after a little morethought.
"And your mother wasn't anxious about you," he said, after a little moreconsideration.
"You'll find such a lot more reasons for not stopping, Jack Penny," Isaid, after hearing him out, "that you'll finish by saying we had betterget our work done and return to a civilised country as soon as we can."
"Oh, I don't know!" said Jack slowly. "I don't care about civilisedcountries: they don't suit me. Everybody laughs at me because I'm a bitdifferent, and father gives it to me precious hard sometimes. Give meGyp and my gun, and I should be happy enough here."
"Don't talk like that, Jack," I said in agony, as I thought of him whohad helped me to escape, and of the prisoner he had mentioned, and whomthe black professed to have seen. "Let's get our task done and escapeas soon as we can. A savage life is not for such as we."
That day we had an alarm.
Our men had been out and returned soon after sunrise, that being ourcustom for safety's sake. Then, too, we were very careful about havinga fire, though we had no difficulty with it, for it burned freely, andthe smoke rose up through the great crack in the rock above our heads,and disappeared quietly amongst the trees. But we had one or twoscares: hearing voices of the blacks calling to each other, but theywere slight compared to the alarm to which I alluded above.
The men, I say, were back, having been more successful than usual--bringing us both fish and a small wild pig. We had made a good meal,and the doctor and I were lying on the armfuls of leafy boughs thatformed our couch, talking for the twentieth time about our plans for thenight, when all at once, just as I was saying that with a little braveeffort we could pass right through the sleepy village and bring away theprisoner, I laid my hand sharply on the doctor's arm.
He raised his head at the same moment, for we had both heard theunmistakable noise given by a piece of dead twig when pressed upon by aheavy foot.
We listened with beating hearts, trying to localise the very spot whencethe sound came; and when we were beginning to breathe more freely itcame again, but faint and distant.
"Whoever it was has not found out that we are here," I whispered.
The doctor nodded; and just then Jack Penny, who had been resting hisback, sat up and yawned loudly, ending by giving Jimmy, who was fastasleep, a sounding slap on the back.
I felt the cold perspiration ooze out of me as I glanced at the doctor.Then turning over on to my hands and knees I crept to where Jimmy wasthreatening Jack with his waddy in much anger, and held up my hand.
The effect was magical. They were silent on the instant, but we passedthe rest of that day in agony.
"I'm glad that we decided to go to-night," the doctor said. "Whoever itwas that passed must have heard us, and we shall have the savages hereto-morrow to see what it meant."
The night seemed as if it would never come, but at last the sun wentdown, and in a very short time it was dark.
Our plans were to go as near as we dared to the village as soon asdarkness set in, place our men, and then watch till the savages seemedto be asleep, and then, by Jimmy's help, seek out my father's prison,bring him away to the cave, and there rest for a day or two, perhaps forseveral, as I have said. But the events of the day had made us doubtfulof the safety of our refuge; and, after talking the matter over with thedoctor, we both came to the conclusion that we would leave the latterpart of our plan to take care of itself.
"First catch your hare, Joe!" said the doctor finally. "And look here,my lad; I begin to feel confident now that this prisoner is your father.We must get him away. It is not a case of _try_! We _must_, I say;and if anything happens to me--"
"Happens to you!" I said aghast.
"Well; I may be captured in his place!" he said smiling. "If I am,don't wait, don't spare a moment, but get off with your prize. I don'tsuppose they will do more than imprison me. I am a doctor, and perhapsI can find some favour with them."
"Don't talk like that, doctor!" I said, grasping his hand. "We musthold together."
"We must release your father!" he said sternly. "There, that will do."