The League of the Leopard

by Harold Bindloss

  CHAPTER XIII

  PESTILENCE

  The result of the day's work was encouraging, though it cost Dane aneffort to concentrate his attention upon his task. Rideau's swarthy facehaunted him; he would have felt more cheerful had his companion decidedto defy him. Maxwell, however, said little, and appeared to findpleasure in working with concentrated energy.

  Evening came at last, and thick darkness closed about the lonely tent.Neither of the men ate much, and when the frugal meal had been clearedaway, Maxwell once more spread his map on the table.

  "We have to make an eventful decision, and it might be well to considerour position," he said, laying his finger on the map. "We are somewherehere, just beyond the fringe of Shaillu's country, with a difficult anddangerous country between us and civilization, and a little-known land,whose inhabitants are supposed to be predatory tribes, to the north."

  "We will take all that for granted," responded Dane. "Can you give meRideau's record?"

  "But little of it. He is evidently of mixed blood, and partly educated,a trader by profession, with a mysterious inland connection. I was toldthat the authorities suspect him of trafficking in unlawful weapons, oreven in black humanity. I have little doubt it was he who hired the manwith the scar on his forehead to arrange for Niven's destruction; and,while several points are not clear to me, I fancy he is at least partlyresponsible for our own misfortunes. Seeing his efforts to circumvent usfail, he has decided to join us--for a time. Lastly, I am inclined tosurmise that by reason of some unlawful speculation, jointly undertaken,he has a hold on Dom Pedro, and so obtained possession of the map youlost. Now, what are we to say to him?"

  "Very little, in my opinion!" grunted Dane. "Tell him to go to thedevil! If that rouses his indignation, as I hope it will, I should findsatisfaction in assisting him."

  Maxwell smiled, but shook his head.

  "Your ways are delightfully simple, but hardly practicable, Hilton," hesaid. "In the first place, Rideau means to stay, and has, he tells us, aforce much superior to our own. Suppose we succeeded in driving him outby violence, we should have to meet a charge of filibustering when wereturned to the coast, or stand a siege if he returned with a host ofnative allies. The one safe step in that direction would be theentrapping and total annihilation of Rideau and his party, which,presumably, would not recommend itself to you!"

  "Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Dane, convinced against his will. "Am I aprofessional murderer? Since you don't agree with mine, let me hear yourviews."

  "In the first place we must hope that, as he suggests, there may be goldenough for three. Further, I consider Rideau least dangerous when undermy own eye, and therefore consider it would be wisest to accept hisproposal and watch him carefully. We shall thus have peace for a time,at least, and when necessary must endeavor to match our wits against hisguile. That the man's company will not be pleasant, I need hardly say;but we can't afford to be particular with so much at stake. Rememberthat we came here to make money, and not in search of adventures, or tomaintain our dignity."

  Dane only nodded, and so the conference concluded. Sooner than lose whathe hoped for he was prepared to concede anything; but it might have beenbetter if he had adhered to his own simple plan; for it is difficult tomake a bargain with such a man as Rideau, and keep it without materiallosses as well as diminished self-respect.

  Early the next morning Rideau arrived, bringing with him an imposingnumber of colored desperadoes; and a written agreement was drawn up.They were to share all risks and expenses, and divide what gold they wonon its safe arrival at the coast. Rideau showed bland satisfaction whenhe read it through; but, before he filled a rusty pen, Dane rose andlaid Bonita Castro's keepsake on the table.

  "Faith is a question of training, and exactly what each man believesconcerns only himself; but probably all of us respect this as a symbol,"he said. "Is that not so, Monsieur Rideau?"

  Rideau glanced from the speaker to Maxwell, and there was a gleam in hiseyes, then he bent his head.

  Flinging down his battered sun-hat, Dane laid his right hand on theobject on the table, saying: "So I solemnly promise, first to keep thisbargain and faith with my partners, if it cost me my life or fortune;and secondly, to demand a full account from either should he betray histrust, as, if I fail them, they shall do to me."

  Maxwell in turn recorded his promise with quiet simplicity; but Rideaustarted when the object was passed on to him. It was a beautifullywrought crucifix of medieval workmanship. For a moment he staredmalevolently at Dane, and then a look akin to fear crept into his eyes.But, raising one hand aloft, he pledged himself more solemnly thaneither, and attached his name first of all to the foot of the agreement.He retired shortly afterward to pitch his camp, for the new partners haddecided that their respective carriers would be best kept apart; andMaxwell looked at his comrade.

  "Had you mentally rehearsed that scene, Hilton?" he asked. "It wasalmost a stroke of genius."

  "No. I don't claim to be a genius. It was simply the most solemn thing Icould think of from his point of view. I meant exactly what I said, andI feel somewhat easier now that Rideau has passed the test."

  Maxwell smiled.

  "You are very confiding, Hilton--and he did not pass the test. Still,considering the blend between the worthy missionaries' teaching andAfrican superstition which, while it would probably astonish them,accounted for his momentary hesitation, Rideau is either braver or moreavaricious than I supposed him. Did it occur to you that he recognizedMiss Castro's gift?"

  Dane was somewhat astonished.

  "How do you know that it was Miss Castro's gift; and what if he did?"

  "I saw it once in her possession, and, as she naturally would not sellsuch a thing, I presumed that you had not stolen it. I heard that Rideauhad persecuted that lady with his attentions. It would be well toremember henceforward that ceaseless vigilance is the price of safety."

  Thus, with the prospect of treachery on one side, the partnership withRideau began; but the new carriers were sturdy men, and the gold-washingwas carried on with characteristic energy, alike under the burning sunof noon and by the glare of great fires until long into the steamynight. Dane labored with his own hands among his Krooboys, stripped tothe waist. Maxwell seconded him loyally, for he had now relinquished theleader's place; and by degrees the pair drilled their dusky subordinatesinto capable workmen. It is true that they usually suspended operationsthe moment the white men relaxed their vigilance; but that was only tobe expected, and their masters got a good deal out of them consideringthat most negroes have a chronic distaste for manual labor. Rideau'sdetachment, Dane noticed, were the most amenable to discipline, andobeyed all orders with a submission which puzzled the observer, for heknew that meek obedience is not a characteristic of the seaboardAfrican. Their master, who did little beyond expressing his approval ofDanes' efforts, grew more cordial as the weeks went by. But Maxwell wascivil, and nothing more; and Dane surmised that he was rather morewatchful and suspicious than he had been before.

  One night when, worn out by physical exertion and aching in every joint,they dragged themselves, dripping with river water, back to their tent,there was a covert sneer in Rideau's laugh as he addressed them:

  "You English are a curious people, and there are those who call you mad.The more tired and dirty you are, the more happy. I once see your navalofficer on the Niger harness with the indigene, like the mule, to dragthe wheel-gun through a robber headman's swamp. One drole, he tell me itwas the glorious fun."

  "I dare say he meant it," retorted Maxwell. "It is probably owing tothat very form of insanity that, while you--the French, I mean--havewith commendable foresight appropriated the best of Africa, we othersremain at least its commercial masters."

  The pause and apparent correction was not made by accident, and Danefancied that Rideau grasped its significance. He retired shortly, andMaxwell looked thoughtful.

  "I am afraid I was not judicious; but we are only human, and there aretimes when my dislike for t
hat rascal almost masters me," he said. "Iwould give much to learn who it is that slinks into his camp at night."

  Dane looked puzzled, for Rideau's camp lay across the river, and waswatched by black sentries; no negro was permitted on any excuse to passits boundaries.

  "As you know, I have of late taken an interest in botany," Maxwelllaughed. "During my researches I found considerably more specimens ofAfrican vegetation in the forest surrounding Rideau's camp than I knowthe names of, and on several occasions what is of greaterinterest--footsteps leading toward our partner's tent. The man who madethem wore sandals; there is nobody among our combined followers whodoes."

  Dane had no suggestions to make, and therefore kept silent; but thatpiece of information left him uneasy.

  It was a still, oppressive day some months later when Dane stood leaningheavily on a shovel near the edge of the bush. The temperature madeexertion almost impossible, and there was a weight in the atmospherewhich rendered respiration an effort; for the last two weeks the sun hadbeen hidden all day long and the stars shrouded by haze at night, andthe same heavy stillness had brooded over the camp. In such weathersickly white men die off, and wise ones lie still in a hammock wheneverpossible; but the lust of gold had held two at least of the partystrenuously to their task, and already a little heap of yellow grainsreposed within an iron-bound chest. The men had, however, experiencedsome trouble with their colored assistants, who had been unusuallydejected and apathetic of late.

  While Dane ran his eyes along his trenches it struck him that the rawheaps of sand and the rude wooden flumes appeared strangely out of placein that gap in the primeval forest. It towered about them, vast,shadowy, and impressive, rotting as it grew, but throbbing with thepulse of an untrammeled life that would tear down the conduits, and burythe workings with verdure, almost as soon as their constructorsrelinquished them. The voices of the negroes, rising hollowly throughthe motionless atmosphere, sounded weak and feeble against its silence.

  "If all goes well, and the yield increases as it has done of late, weshould have enough to leave us a creditable profit before the year isdone," Dane said. "We have been long enough in this country, Carsluith,and I mean to return to England before it wastes all the life out ofme."

  Perhaps it was the weather, for Maxwell appeared in an unusually sombermood.

  "Your proviso covers a good deal," he replied. "This is a land ofsurprises, where it is more than usually useless to predict what any manwill do. Neither are the signs auspicious at present."

  "No," Dane agreed reflectively; "I can't say that I consider them so.This dead stillness worries me. Does it presage a premature change inthe seasons, or has it any other unpleasant meaning?"

  "Who can tell? Anything abnormal carries a hint of death with it in thiscountry. Still, there are other tokens. The few tribesmen who brought usin provisions have vanished completely. The last we saw looked likebadly frightened men and were moving south with, for natives, surprisingcelerity. As you know, the interpreter failed to understand them, but Ihave an uneasy feeling that there was a sufficient cause for theirhurry. The negro is not a foreseeing person, and does not run awayunless the danger which threatens him is tangible and near."

  Dane twice turned to move back toward the workings, but did not do so.His physical nature revolted from toil that day, and his brain felt sickand useless under the stress of temperature. So the two lingered until anegro near them, dropping his shovel, rolled over, clawing at the sand,as suddenly as a rabbit stricken by the gun. His fall was so swift andunexpected that Dane stared at the twitching black limbs motionlessuntil Maxwell's voice roused him.

  "Shake yourself together, Hilton. There is work before us! That fellowmust be carried into the bush before the rest discover what he issuffering from."

  The man proved a heavy lift, and his greasy limbs writhed within theirgrasp; but they laid him among the creepers without attractingattention, and Dane, running to the tent, returned with a phial.

  "Where do you feel them pain lib?" he asked.

  The sufferer laid a black hand on his waist-cloth.

  "Somebody done put hot iron in heah, sah, and turn him round and round."

  Dane managed to drench him from the phial before his teeth met in anagony, and Maxwell closed one hand as he looked at his partner.

  "It is very hard that this should happen--now--but you and I must seethe poor devils through," he said. "Our help may not be worth much, butit is all that stands between them and destruction. It is one of thescourges of this afflicted country--swifter than cholera, and moredeadly. This camp will resemble the pit presently."

  Maxwell next glanced down at the negro pitifully, his foreheadcontracted and his lips firmly set, but he nodded abruptly when Danespoke again.

  "I have seen something like it in South America. Is it invariablycontagious?"

  "To negroes, yes; to white men, less so. In any case you have run theworst risk of infection already."

  "Confound you! Do you suppose--?"

  Maxwell interrupted, laying a hand on his shoulder.

  "I think you and I are going to fight a very tough battle together,Hilton."

  He had hardly spoken when Rideau appeared from behind them, and glancedat the groaning man. Then he shuffled backward well away from him;answered Maxwell's look of interrogation with a nod; and, while hisface grew distinctly less like that of a European, he fumbled inside hisjacket. The barrel of a pistol was visible the next moment. "It is," hesaid suggestively, "if the cases are few, the best way for preserve theothers. In their own country they use the paddle. One good blow wherethe skull she is thinnest, and--voila, the safe remedy!"

  Dane stretched a big hand out, and Rideau winced with a stifledexpletive as he dropped the weapon; while the Briton was sensible of adistinct disappointment when he saw that the man's wrist remainedunbroken. The suggestion had apparently revolted Maxwell also; he staredat the speaker with unconcealed loathing, while the latter opened hislips for a moment in a wolfish snarl as he glanced sideways at Dane.Just then, Victor Rideau looked very much less like a French gentlemanthan a low-caste negro. Nevertheless, he was the first to recover hisserenity.

  "You have the mistaken squeamish; but me, I know the most advisable, andhave great fear of the sick which catches," said he. "She is distressfulfor me. Sacre! Here is more other. To-morrow I consult you. Alors, Igo."

  A shrill scream of human agony rang through the lifeless air, andRideau, who did not stand upon the order of his going, departed with allpossible celerity.

  Neither of his partners was much inclined for mirth, but there is oftena ludicrous side to a tragedy; and Maxwell positively laughed when Danesavagely hurled the pistol after its vanishing owner.

  "Missed! I would have given a good deal of the gold to strike himsquarely between the shoulders. I meant it to hurt," he said.

  Then an uproar began. Black figures, swarming out of the workings,gathered about the fallen man, clamoring excitedly, and Maxwell resumedcommand.

  "They're panic-stricken; and fear will spread the sickness fastest. Thismust be stopped at once! We have not a moment to lose, or there will bemurder done."

  Dane felt very helpless as they ran forward to disperse the mob ofterror-stricken black men. He still carried the shovel, though Maxwellwent empty-handed, because, either from pride or policy, he neverdisplayed a weapon once camp had been pitched. He appeared quietlyresolute, though Dane afterward admitted feeling desperately anxious andmore than a little afraid, for the mass of dusky faces with unreasoningfear and its accompanying ferocity stamped upon them was not anencouraging spectacle. Any one of those negroes was physically a matchfor two white men, and there were a good many of them.

  The mob came to a standstill at the sight of them. Maxwell, removing hishat, straightened out the dints in it before he spoke a few words, andthen, thrusting his way through the groups which opened up before him,halted beside the fallen man.

  Some of the negroes began to chatter; some shrank farther back; butther
e was presently an ominous growling, and again the mob surgedforward, one man with a matchet launching himself straight at his whitemaster. Hitherto he had shown himself both cheerful and docile, but nowhe seemed possessed of a devil, the devil of fear transmuted intomaniacal savagery. Maxwell did not at first see him, and when he did itwould have been too late, but that Dane whirled aloft the shovel, andwhen it came down the negro fell like a pole-axed ox at his comrade'sfeet. Even then Dane felt sick and sorry as he saw the red drops runfrom the steel, for he had often encouragingly patted his victim'sbrawny shoulder; but the negro is above all things unstable, and thatblow was the saving of many lives. The crowd stood silent, cowed for afew moments by the swift retribution.

  "Thanks," said Maxwell; "I think you have nipped it in the bud, Hilton."

  Before he began to speak again his lieutenant, Amadu, and Dane's specialfollower, Monday, sprang to their side. Both carried rifles; and thatturned the scale. Before half an hour had elapsed the two had not onlyrestored a degree of confidence and order, but had picked out a numberof men who might be trusted to act as sanitary police. By this time,however, the plague had claimed other victims, and Maxwell startedforthwith to choose an isolated site for a hospital camp; while Dane,moving to and fro among the laborers, set apart any with suspicioussymptoms.

  It was midnight before either found leisure for food or rest, and thenDane knelt, with a biscuit in one hand, beside the little medicine chestin the tent, while Maxwell bent over a medical treatise as he ate.Several sick men lay moaning just outside the illuminated canvas, andone, apparently in delirium, had during the last hour never ceasedcrooning the hammock-bearers' song.

  "That chanty grows wearisome," said Maxwell at length; and, because Danewas overwrought, his companion's composure jarred upon him.

  "Put down that tin and hold the glass for me. You have eaten threebiscuits already, and this is no time for feasting! I'm going to startwith chlorodyne. We found it good in South America when we could give itto them quick enough; but these fellows have an irritating trick ofcrawling away into some lair to die quietly. There. Give this to thefirst two poor devils, half each by measure."

  Maxwell went swiftly, and returned very grim in face.

  "Too late," he reported. "One is cold already; the other testified thatthere is but one Allah as I bent over him, and ended in a gurgle. Hallo!What is this?"

  Preceded by a negro carrying a torch, Rideau, smoking sedulously,approached the tent, and halted well clear of it. The man was not, ashis partners had cause to know, unduly timid, but now fear was plainlystamped on his face, which the red glare of the torch forced up againstthe gloom.

  "I have great fear of this sick, and make proposition," he said. "I gotake all the boy of me back a league into the forest, and make othercamp. If any he is fall ill, I with all possible expedition send himyou."

  Both of the listeners found heart to smile at the latter sentence beforeDane's resentment mastered him.

  "It is particularly considerate of him, but his proposition has somesense in it," said Maxwell aside. "You are acting surgeon-major, Hilton.What do you suggest?"

  "You can go straight to perdition, or anywhere else that pleases you, solong as you don't waste our time!" thundered Dane; and with a salutewhich expressed no resentment, but only relief, Rideau withdrew.

  "How long does this thing generally last?" asked Dane.

  "Sometimes it clears a village out in a fortnight, more often it hangsround a month, or even longer, picking out odd victims; and before thattime has gone we shall have the rains."

  "Which will prevent any further mining, probably cut off our road to thecoast, and render life here almost impossible," Dane said hoarsely.

  "Exactly. There can be no more mining now."

  As the two men's eyes met, each knew just what his comrade was thinking.

  "We must see them through," said Dane, and Maxwell answered, as thoughthis decision had never been in doubt: "Of course!"

  With that they fell to work again, for there was much to do, which wasfortunate, because, otherwise, the thought of what both would certainlylose and what one was risking for the sake of naked heathen, many ofwhom were little higher in intelligence than dumb cattle, might havemaddened them. Still, even the most stupid had trusted the white men,and, in their own fashion, served them well.