The Great Quest Part 24

They came on board, one at a time, all but Willie MacDougald. Of him there was neither sign nor word. I started forward to question them, then stopped short. Something in their att.i.tude froze and repelled me. Of what use were questions--then, at any rate? For a moment they waited in the gangway, then, all together, they went aft.

Leaving them and moving to the farther side of the brig, I looked a long time into the dark, tangled jungle. The clouds had gone and the stars had come out and the dying wind spoke only in slow, distant soughs among the leaves. So blackly repellent was the matted and decaying vegetation, through which dark veins of stagnant water ran, and so grimly silent, that I could not keep from shuddering with a sort of childish horror. Surely, I thought, human beings could not penetrate such depths. Then, almost with my thought, there came across the dark and fever-laden waters of the great swamp, out of the black jungle night, a thread of golden melody. Someone in that very jungle was whistling sweetly an old and plaintive tune.

I heard the three, Gleazen, Matterson, and my uncle, turn to listen.

By lantern light I saw their faces as they looked intently toward the jungle. So still had the brig now become, that I actually heard them breath more quickly.

Then Neil Gleazen cried, "By the Holy, that's either Bud O'Hara or his ghost."

With both hands cupped round his mouth, he was about to send a hoa.r.s.e reply roaring back across the river, when Matterson clutched his hand.

"Be still," he whispered. "Here's the answer."

And he, in turn, sent back the answering phrase of that singularly mournful and haunting ballad: "I Lost my Love in the Nightingale."

CHAPTER XVII

THE MAN FROM THE JUNGLE

Very slowly Matterson whistled that old tune, "The Nightingale," and very slowly an answer came back to us; then a long silence ensued.

The black water of the marsh rose and fell. We could hear it whispering softly as it washed against the tangled roots of the mangroves, and once in a while I could distinguish the long, faint rasp of some branch or vine that dragged across another. But except for those small noises, the place was as still as a house of death; and as we watched and waited, the feeling grew upon me that we must be in the midst of a dream.

Then something moved and caught my eye, and a canoe silently shot out upon the river. With a swish and swirl of paddles, she came alongside us and stayed for a moment, like a dragon-fly pausing in its flight, then shot silently back the way she had come. I had seen against the water that there were three men in the canoe when she came; but when she slipped back into the mangroves, I saw that there were only two.

Before I had time to question the reason of all this, I saw a man's head rise above the bulwark and knew that he had sprung from the canoe to the chains while the little craft so briefly paused.

Climbing over the bulwark and dropping to the deck, the man said in low, cautious voice, "Is it Neil I've been hearing? And Molly?"

"Here we be, Bud, us two and Seth Upham."

"And sure, do this fine vessel be ours, Neil?"

"Ours she is, along with Seth Upham. Come, Bud, here is Mr. Upham, who has joined in with us and gets a half-and-half lay, and here--"

"O Neil," the mysterious newcomer drawled, "would he be comin' for naught short of half shares? And where's Molly? Ah, Molly, you've been long away."

They all were shaking hands together.

"And now," said Matterson, "what news of Bull?"

"Of Bull, is it?" the man replied. "Sure, he's sitting on the chest o' treasure. Warnings they give us, that the hill is haunted and all such. Spirits, you know, Neil; spirits, Molly. Sure the n.i.g.g.e.rs know more about them things than we do--indeed they do. It's not I would go agin them rashly. But I fixed 'em, lads."

"How?" asked Matterson softly.

"Bull laughed at them fit to kill,--which is his way, as you'll remember,--but not I. Says I, 'Laugh if you will; 't is well to be fearless since you're the one to stay.' But I did for him better than the stiff-necked rascal would do for himself. That night I hunted me out an old master wizard and paid him in gold, and didn't he give me a charm that will keep spirits away?"

To hear a sober white man talk of charms with all the faith of a credulous child amazed me. I had never dreamed there could be such a man. Pressing closer, I took a good look at this queer stranger, and saw him to be a short, broad fellow, with a square jaw and a face so intelligent that my amazement became even greater.

He, in turn, saw me looking at him, and half in a drawl, half in a brogue, asked, "Now who'll this one be?"

"He's the young man that came with Mr. Upham," Gleazen replied.

"Is he fearless?" asked the strange Bud. "And is he honest?--Aye,"

he rather testily added, "and is he, too, to share half-and-half?"

To that Gleazen returned no answer, but the man's tone made me think of Gleazen himself roaring drunk and staggering away from Higgleby's barn, of Matterson with his voice hardened to a cutting edge, of the master of the Merry Jack and Eleanor, and of the adventurous night when we parted from poor Sim Muzzy. I tell you honestly, I would have given every cent I had in the world and every chance I had of fortune to have been fifteen hundred leagues away.

Turning to Matterson, the man went on: "'T is not discreet for the like o' you two to come sailing in by broad daylight with all sail set. Now why couldn't ye ha' come in a boat, say, and let the brig lie off the coast. Then we could 'a' met secret-like and 'a' got away and up the river with no one the wiser. Sure, and there's not a soul in a thousand miles, now, that ain't heard a tale o' Neil and Molly."

"The storm was hard upon us," said Matterson.

"And a cruiser lay in the offing," said Gleazen.

"It would be possible, then," the man returned, "that ye're not as big--not _quite_ as big fools as I took ye to be."

Then, as if all had been arranged beforehand, while Matterson and the strange man and Uncle Seth went below to the cabin, Gleazen took me by the arm and led me away from the others.

"Joe," he murmured,--and I saw a new, eager glint in his eyes,--"Joe, there's great times coming. I've made up my mind I can trust you, Joe, and I'm going to make you my lieutenant. Yes, sir, I'm going to make you an officer."

I wondered what kind of story he would tell next, for by this time I knew him far too intimately to be deceived by his brazen flattery.

It was singularly trying for me, man grown that I was, to be treated with an air of patronage that a stripling would have resented, and there were moments when I was like to have turned on Gleazen with a vengeance. But I waited my time. It was not hard to see that my patience need not endure interminably.

"You, Joe, are one of us," he continued, "and we're glad to take you into our confidence. But these others--" he waved his hand generally--"we can't have 'em know too much. Now we're going to-night to get things sized up and ready, and what I want to know, Joe, is this: will you--as my lieutenant, you understand--take Arnold and Mr. Severance and Captain North ash.o.r.e to call on Mr.

Parmenter?"

"But who," I asked, "is Mr. Parmenter?"

"He's an Englishman, Joe, and if you can sort of convey to him--you know what I mean--that we're after hides and ivory, purely a matter of trade, it'll be a good thing, Joe. Mind you, as my lieutenant, Joe."

Never had I been so _Joe'd_ in all my life before. When Gleazen had gone, I fairly snorted at my sudden and easy honors. Evidently he told much the same story to the others, except Captain North, with whom Gleazen himself very well knew that such a flimsy yarn was not likely to prevail, and to whom Uncle Seth, accordingly, entrusted some genuine business; and half an hour later we gathered at the rail to go ash.o.r.e.

"Now, then," Captain North said peremptorily, in such a way that I knew he was entirely unaware of my recent appointment as Gleazen's lieutenant, "now then, lads, into the boat all hands together."

"One moment!" I cried. "I forgot something." And with that I ran back.

In changing my jacket in honor of the call we were to make, I had left my pistol behind me. Of no mind to put off without it, I hurried down to my stateroom.

Pa.s.sing through the cabin, I saw that the four men, Gleazen, Matterson, the strange Bud, and my uncle, were drawing up around the great table, on which they had carelessly thrown a pack of cards.

They gave me frowns and hard looks as I pa.s.sed, and I heard them muttering among themselves at the interruption; but with scarcely a thought of what they said, I left them to their game.

No sooner had our boat crunched on the sh.o.r.e than on all sides black figures appeared from the darkness, and landing, we found ourselves surrounded by negroes, who pressed upon us until we fairly had to thrust them back with oars. It was the first time I had set foot on the continent of Africa, and the place and the people and the circ.u.mstances were all, to my New England apprehension, so extraordinary and so alarming that I cast a reluctant glance back at the dim lights of the Adventure. But now a door opened, and I saw in the bright rectangle a white man in European clothes; and we went up and shook his hand,--which seemed for some reason to displease him, although he did not actually refuse it,--and were ushered into a large room with a board floor and chairs and tables and pictures, for all the world as if it were a regular house.

"Under some circ.u.mstances I should no doubt be glad to meet you, gentlemen," he said, with cold reserve, "for no s.h.i.+p has visited us for more than three months. But we hereabouts are not friendly to slavers."

"Nor are we," Gideon North retorted.