In Search of the Okapi Part 39

"I told her you were the white man's son, and she has seen for herself. Maybe her words mean that when the father is gone the son takes his place. But in time you will know, for her meaning is sometimes hard to understand. Now sleep, you two, for there is great need for us ahead."

Without more ado the two "young lions" rolled themselves in their blankets and enjoyed the rare luxury of an untroubled sleep, and when they awoke they were in a vast lagoon, out of which stood the bleached skeletons of dead trees, with gaunt bare branches, in all manner of fantastic shapes. But it was only the trees that were dead, for the astonished eyes of the boys rested on such a multiplicity of animal life as they had never before seen. Birds roosted on the aforesaid dead branches--sooty ibis, white pelicans, crows, kingfishers, and here and there, like sentinels on the topmost branches, a white-headed eagle, with his hooked bill, dominating the scene. Wheeling through the air were strings of duck and wisps of snipe in battalions, rows of cranes with their long legs trailing, and on the surface of the smooth water, on scores of small islands, formed originally by uprooted trees, and under the water, there were yet innumerable creatures. It was certainly grand hunting for all. There were flies and gnats for the frogs, tadpoles and the sp.a.w.n of frogs for the little fishes, little fishes were preyed on by the ducks and the big fishes, while the birds and the big fishes in turn provided breakfast, dinner, and supper for the crocodiles. Apparently the crocodiles were too tough, too musky, and too powerful, to serve as food for any other animal higher up in the scale; but it is not to be supposed that they had merely to open their jaws to s.n.a.t.c.h a meal, for there were shallows all about where the waders could go to sleep in peace, standing on one leg. And there they stood, regiments of them--crested cranes, blue cranes, black ibis, pink ibis, flamingoes, and wild geese.. And the noise was tremendous!

The Okapi sailed under a gentle breeze right into the thick of this sportsman's paradise, and from the low islands armies of mosquitoes gaily advanced to meet her until they formed a moving cloud around her, only kept off from eating up the crew by the merciful intervention of the canvas awning and mosquito curtains.

"What a magnificent specimen of the spoonbill bittern," groaned Venning. "If we had only brought an air-gun--for I suppose we cannot fire."

"Look at those fat geese in a row," said Compton. "What a stew they would make. Just one shot, sir."

"It won't do," said Mr. Hume. "A single shot would raise noise enough to wake the seven sleepers."

"There is another way," said Muata.

"What way?"

"A line such as you used for fish--see." He shaved off some thin shreds of buffalo biltong, chewed it, and dropped it astern. An inquisitive teal watched him keenly, and, as the boat went by, made a swoop for the fragment. The incident was noticed, and a big gander, curiously tame, came sailing up, arching its neck in imitation of the swan. The boys were at the lockers in a flash, drew out a couple of lines, bent on a large hook, buoyed it, by the advice of Mr. Hume, between two floats, baited the hooks, and payed the line over the stem, while Muata dropped over a few more pellets.

There was a flotilla of duck and geese following in the wake of the Okapi, and in less than a minute there were two bites. Compton had the black and grey gander, while Venning had a fat duck in tow. The Okapi was backed full speed astern and the astonished fowl pulled on board before they knew what had happened. The geese sheered off at once, speaking to each other in subdued tones, but in the next quarter of an hour three more ducks were added to the bag. Then a piratical craft appeared in the very thick of the peaceful convoy, opened its broadside, as it were, and engulfed a couple. There was a swirl in the water, a resounding smack made by a long scaley tail, and a third fowl went the way of the others. Beating their wings, the duck rose with loud quacks to seek the safety of a shallow, and the leery green eyes of the piratical crocodile appeared above the disturbed water.

"You old thief!" cried Venning.

"It is his hunting-ground," said Muata, with a chuckle, as he pa.s.sed the birds to his mother, who began at once to pluck them.

"Out with the big pot and the preserved vegetables," said Compton.

"We'll have one big feast, even if we go hungry for a week."

The pot was got out, water from the lagoon was boiled, strained, and boiled again, then, as each bird was cleaned, it was cut up and placed in the pot, the offal falling to the share of the jackal. It was a great meal, of soup, game, cabbage, potatoes, onions, and carrots, all mixed up, and when it had been eaten down to the last drop, with a dose of quinine for safety, and a cup of coffee for comfort, they were all s.h.i.+ny and happy. The oily fat from the birds, which formed a layer on the top while the mess was boiling, had been carefully removed, and when it had cooled, Muata and his mother rubbed it over their faces, necks, arms, and hair until they glistened.

"Well, I'm sugared!" said Compton.

"Fat very good for the skin," said Muata, showing his teeth. "You try."

"Better for the guns, chief.''

"Wow! and for the big knife;" and the chief polished up his Ghoorka blade, while the boys greased the rifles and stared at the chief's wife, thinking, as they stared, of the adventures which she had been through since she fled from the kraal of her husband, driven out by the slave-hunters. They had seen old black women at the villages, wrinkled old crones, phenomenally thin; but this woman was not much wrinkled, and she was not thin. Neither was she ugly as those others had been, for she carried herself straight, and there was a dignity about her actions whenever she moved her long bare arms. But they came to the conclusion that she was not a person to sew on b.u.t.tons, for there was a hard look about the eyes, and the whole cast of the face was set and stem. It did not seem possible that she could smile, and, remembering the careless laughter of native women, who were amused at anything or nothing, she was a mystery to them. So they very soon gave up trying to make anything out of her, and turned their attention to the lagoon, which stretched away a good ten miles on either hand to the dark fringe of forest. Evidently the forest had grown where the shallow waters now were, as the dead trees testified.

"The land has sunk about here," said Venning, "and underneath there must be a coal-bed in process of formation. Now, if there were hills around, and a nice clean sand-beach, I should like to spend months here."

"Too many mosquitoes!"

"Besides," said Mr. Hume, striking in, "there are hills."

"Where? Over there? Why, that's a cloud!"

"Perhaps so; but the cloud rests on a hill-top. Isn't that so, Muata?"

"Those be the gates to the Place of Rest."

"By Jimminy! How far?" This was something to be excited about.

Muata held up five fingers. "So many suns will rise and set."

"And does the forest lie in between?"

"Between and beyond."

"And the Place of Rest, is that forest also?"

"The sun s.h.i.+nes there all day," said the chief; "and a man can see his shadow lengthen. The little ones play on the white sand, the women and the girls work in the gardens on the open slopes of the hills, and the men----"

"Well, what about the men?"

"They lie in the sand like lizards, and talk like parrots."

It was the chief's wife who spoke scornfully, using the language they had mastered.

"Wow!" chimed in the chief, "they are timid people, the men; but the time is at hand when those who will not fight will be set to do women's work in the gardens."

The woman nodded her head grimly. "The time is at hand when the reapers will work, not in the cornfields, but about the fires where the men sit. Ha.s.san is to be feared; but he can only enter if he is helped from within."

"I listen, O wise one," said the son, sternly. "Even if I weed them all out so that there are none left but Muata and these three white strangers, your counsel shall be followed."

"It is well," said the mother, nodding her head.

"You seem to have little faith in your people," said Compton.

"Haw! They grow fat and timid. They have no fight in them. Once before, when I was a boy, I beat them; but they have forgotten."

"I rather think, chief, that they would be as well off under Ha.s.san as under you."

"Ha.s.san would yoke them in and drive them out through the forest into the plains. A man must fight for his kraal. That is the law."

"It is the law," said the woman.

"And that is the Place of Rest?" said Venning, lingering on the sight. "More like a place of trouble for some; but, at any rate, if there are hills and open places, I shall be glad to get there. It would be a real treat to have s.p.a.ce enough for a trot. But, I say, it is time you two slept."

"That is just what I have been thinking," said Mr. Hume.

The two boys took the levers, but Muata declined to rest. He said there were two openings leading from the lagoon to the hills--one a broad channel, commonly used, the other a smaller channel.

"We will take the little river," he said, "so that Ha.s.san, who will follow the other track, will not know of our going. But it is hard to find this little water-path, and I must search for it."

"Don't go up a track that will not give water for the boat. Are you sure that it will carry us?"

"Ow ay! there is water enough, great one. So sleep well."

For a couple of hours the boys worked the levers, and at the end they came upon a thicket of reeds, along which the Okapi skirted, while the chief and his mother kept a keen outlook. Twice they plunged into the reeds on a false trail; and then, as they lay off scanning the oily water for trace of a current, the woman held up her hand.

"It is Ha.s.san," said the chief.