Chapter 12
A Black Scoundrel
When Jane Clayton regained consciousness she saw Anderssen standing
over her, holding the baby in his arms. As her eyes rested upon
them an expression of misery and horror overspread her countenance.
"What is the matter?" he asked. "You ban sick?"
"Where is my baby?" she cried, ignoring his questions.
Anderssen held out the chubby infant, but she shook her head.
"It is not mine," she said. "You knew that it was not mine. You
are a devil like the Russian."
Anderssen's blue eyes stretched in surprise.
"Not yours!" he exclaimed. "You tole me the kid aboard the Kincaid
ban your kid."
"Not this one," replied Jane dully. "The other. Where is the
other? There must have been two. I did not know about this one."
"There vasn't no other kid. Ay tank this ban yours. Ay am very
sorry."
Anderssen fidgeted about, standing first on one foot and then upon
the other. It was perfectly evident to Jane that he was honest in
his protestations of ignorance of the true identity of the child.
Presently the baby commenced to crow, and bounce up and down in the
Swede's arms, at the same time leaning forward with little hands
out-reaching toward the young woman.
She could not withstand the appeal, and with a low cry she sprang
to her feet and gathered the baby to her breast.
For a few minutes she wept silently, her face buried in the baby's
soiled little dress. The first shock of disappointment that the
tiny thing had not been her beloved Jack was giving way to a great
hope that after all some miracle had occurred to snatch her baby
from Rokoff's hands at the last instant before the Kincaid sailed
from England.
Then, too, there was the mute appeal of this wee waif alone and
unloved in the midst of the horrors of the savage jungle. It was
this thought more than any other that had sent her mother's heart
out to the innocent babe, while still she suffered from disappointment
that she had been deceived in its identity.
"Have you no idea whose child this is?" she asked Anderssen.
The man shook his head.
"Not now," he said. "If he ain't ban your kid, Ay don' know whose
kid he do ban. Rokoff said it was yours. Ay tank he tank so, too.
"What do we do with it now? Ay can't go back to the Kincaid. Rokoff
would have me shot; but you can go back. Ay take you to the sea,
and then some of these black men they take you to the ship--eh?"
"No! no!" cried Jane. "Not for the world. I would rather die than
fall into the hands of that man again. No, let us go on and take
this poor little creature with us. If God is willing we shall be
saved in one way or another."
So they again took up their flight through the wilderness, taking
with them a half-dozen of the Mosulas to carry provisions and the
tents that Anderssen had smuggled aboard the small boat in preparation
for the attempted escape.
The days and nights of torture that the young woman suffered were
so merged into one long, unbroken nightmare of hideousness that
she soon lost all track of time. Whether they had been wandering
for days or years she could not tell. The one bright spot in
that eternity of fear and suffering was the little child whose tiny
hands had long since fastened their softly groping fingers firmly
about her heart.
In a way the little thing took the place and filled the aching
void that the theft of her own baby had left. It could never be
the same, of course, but yet, day by day, she found her mother-love,
enveloping the waif more closely until she sometimes sat with
closed eyes lost in the sweet imagining that the little bundle of
humanity at her breast was truly her own.
For some time their progress inland was extremely slow. Word came
to them from time to time through natives passing from the coast
on hunting excursions that Rokoff had not yet guessed the direction
of their flight. This, and the desire to make the journey as light
as possible for the gently bred woman, kept Anderssen to a slow
advance of short and easy marches with many rests.
The Swede insisted upon carrying the child while they travelled,
and in countless other ways did what he could to help Jane Clayton
conserve her strength. He had been terribly chagrined on discovering
the mistake he had made in the identity of the baby, but once the
young woman became convinced that his motives were truly chivalrous
she would not permit him longer to upbraid himself for the error
that he could not by any means have avoided.
At the close of each day's march Anderssen saw to the erection of
a comfortable shelter for Jane and the child. Her tent was always
pitched in the most favourable location. The thorn boma round
it was the strongest and most impregnable that the Mosula could
construct.
Her food was the best that their limited stores and the rifle of
the Swede could provide, but the thing that touched her heart the
closest was the gentle consideration and courtesy which the man
always accorded her.
That such nobility of character could lie beneath so repulsive an
exterior never ceased to be a source of wonder and amazement to
her, until at last the innate chivalry of the man, and his unfailing
kindliness and sympathy transformed his appearance in so far as
Jane was concerned until she saw only the sweetness of his character
mirrored in his countenance.
They had commenced to make a little better progress when word
reached them that Rokoff was but a few marches behind them, and
that he had at last discovered the direction of their flight. It
was then that Anderssen took to the river, purchasing a canoe from
a chief whose village lay a short distance from the Ugambi upon
the bank of a tributary.
Thereafter the little party of fugitives fled up the broad Ugambi,
and so rapid had their flight become that they no longer received
word of their pursuers. At the end of canoe navigation upon the
river, they abandoned their canoe and took to the jungle. Here
progress became at once arduous, slow, and dangerous.
The second day after leaving the Ugambi the baby fell ill with fever.
Anderssen knew what the outcome must be, but he had not the heart
to tell Jane Clayton the truth, for he had seen that the young
woman had come to love the child almost as passionately as though
it had been her own flesh and blood.
As the baby's condition precluded farther advance, Anderssen withdrew
a little from the main trail he had been following and built a camp
in a natural clearing on the bank of a little river.
Here Jane devoted her every moment to caring for the tiny sufferer,
and as though her sorrow and anxiety were not all that she could
bear, a further blow came with the sudden announcement of one of
the Mosula porters who had been foraging in the jungle adjacent
that Rokoff and his party were camped quite close to them, and
were evidently upon their trail to this little nook which all had
thought so excellent a hiding-place.
This information could mean but one thing, and that they must break
camp and fly onward regardless of the baby's condition. Jane
Clayton knew the traits of the Russian well enough to be positive
that he would separate her from the child the moment that he recaptured
them, and she knew that separation would mean the immediate death
of the baby.
As they stumbled forward through the tangled vegetation along an
old and almost overgrown game trail the Mosula porters deserted
them one by one.
The men had been staunch enough in their devotion and loyalty as
long as they were in no danger of being overtaken by the Russian
and his party. They had heard, however, so much of the atrocious
disposition of Rokoff that they had grown to hold him in mortal
terror, and now that they knew he was close upon them their timid
hearts would fortify them no longer, and as quickly as possible
they deserted the three whites.
Yet on and on went Anderssen and the girl. The Swede went ahead,
to hew a way through the brush where the path was entirely overgrown,
so that on this march it was necessary that the young woman carry
the child.
All day they marched. Late in the afternoon they realized that
they had failed. Close behind them they heard the noise of a large
safari advancing along the trail which they had cleared for their
pursuers.
When it became quite evident that they must be overtaken in a short
time Anderssen hid Jane behind a large tree, covering her and the
child with brush.
"There is a village about a mile farther on," he said to her. "The
Mosula told me its location before they deserted us. Ay try to
lead the Russian off your trail, then you go on to the village.
Ay tank the chief ban friendly to white men--the Mosula tal me he
ban. Anyhow, that was all we can do.
"After while you get chief to tak you down by the Mosula village
at the sea again, an' after a while a ship is sure to put into the
mouth of the Ugambi. Then you be all right. Gude-by an' gude luck
to you, lady!"
"But where are you going, Sven?" asked Jane. "Why can't you hide
here and go back to the sea with me?"
"Ay gotta tal the Russian you ban dead, so that he don't luke for
you no more," and Anderssen grinned.
"Why can't you join me then after you have told him that?" insisted
the girl.
Anderssen shook his head.
"Ay don't tank Ay join anybody any more after Ay tal the Russian
you ban dead," he said.
"You don't mean that you think he will kill you?" asked Jane, and
yet in her heart she knew that that was exactly what the great
scoundrel would do in revenge for his having been thwarted by the
Swede. Anderssen did not reply, other than to warn her to silence
and point toward the path along which they had just come.
"I don't care," whispered Jane Clayton. "I shall not let you die
to save me if I can prevent it in any way. Give me your revolver.
I can use that, and together we may be able to hold them off until
we can find some means of escape."
"It won't work, lady," replied Anderssen. "They would only get us
both, and then Ay couldn't do you no good at all. Think of the
kid, lady, and what it would be for you both to fall into Rokoff's
hands again. For his sake you must do what Ay say. Here, take my
rifle and ammunition; you may need them."
He shoved the gun and bandoleer into the shelter beside Jane. Then
he was gone.
She watched him as he returned along the path to meet the oncoming
safari of the Russian. Soon a turn in the trail hid him from view.
Her first impulse was to follow. With the rifle she might be of
assistance to him, and, further, she could not bear the terrible
thought of being left alone at the mercy of the fearful jungle
without a single friend to aid her.
She started to crawl from her shelter with the intention of running
after Anderssen as fast as she could. As she drew the baby close
to her she glanced down into its little face.
How red it was! How unnatural the little thing looked. She raised
the cheek to hers. It was fiery hot with fever!
With a little gasp of terror Jane Clayton rose to her feet in the
jungle path. The rifle and bandoleer lay forgotten in the shelter
beside her. Anderssen was forgotten, and Rokoff, and her great
peril.
All that rioted through her fear-mad brain was the fearful fact
that this little, helpless child was stricken with the terrible
jungle-fever, and that she was helpless to do aught to allay its
sufferings--sufferings that were sure to coming during ensuing
intervals of partial consciousness.
Her one thought was to find some one who could help her--some
woman who had had children of her own--and with the thought came
recollection of the friendly village of which Anderssen had spoken.
If she could but reach it--in time!
There was no time to be lost. Like a startled antelope she turned
and fled up the trail in the direction Anderssen had indicated.
From far behind came the sudden shouting of men, the sound of shots,
and then silence. She knew that Anderssen had met the Russian.
A half-hour later she stumbled, exhausted, into a little thatched
village. Instantly she was surrounded by men, women, and children.
Eager, curious, excited natives plied her with a hundred questions,
no one of which she could understand or answer.
All that she could do was to point tearfully at the baby, now wailing
piteously in her arms, and repeat over and over, "Fever--fever--fever."
The blacks did not understand her words, but they saw the cause of
her trouble, and soon a young woman had pulled her into a hut and
with several others was doing her poor best to quiet the child and
allay its agony.
The witch doctor came and built a little fire before the infant,
upon which he boiled some strange concoction in a small earthen
pot, making weird passes above it and mumbling strange, monotonous
chants. Presently he dipped a zebra's tail into the brew, and
with further mutterings and incantations sprinkled a few drops of
the liquid over the baby's face.
After he had gone the women sat about and moaned and wailed until
Jane thought that she should go mad; but, knowing that they were
doing it all out of the kindness of their hearts, she endured the
frightful waking nightmare of those awful hours in dumb and patient
suffering.
It must have been well toward midnight that she became conscious
of a sudden commotion in the village. She heard the voices of the
natives raised in controversy, but she could not understand the
words.
Presently she heard footsteps approaching the hut in which she
squatted before a bright fire with the baby on her lap. The little
thing lay very still now, its lids, half-raised, showed the pupils
horribly upturned.
Jane Clayton looked into the little face with fear-haunted eyes.
It was not her baby--not her flesh and blood--but how close, how
dear the tiny, helpless thing had become to her. Her heart, bereft
of its own, had gone out to this poor, little, nameless waif, and
lavished upon it all the love that had been denied her during the
long, bitter weeks of her captivity aboard the Kincaid.
She saw that the end was near, and though she was terrified
at contemplation of her loss, still she hoped that it would come
quickly now and end the sufferings of the little victim.
The footsteps she had heard without the hut now halted before the
door. There was a whispered colloquy, and a moment later M'ganwazam,
chief of the tribe, entered. She had seen but little of him, as
the women had taken her in hand almost as soon as she had entered
the village.
M'ganwazam, she now saw, was an evil-appearing savage with every
mark of brutal degeneracy writ large upon his bestial countenance.
To Jane Clayton he looked more gorilla than human. He tried to
converse with her, but without success, and finally he called to
some one without.
In answer to his summons another Negro entered--a man of very
different appearance from M'ganwazam--so different, in fact, that
Jane Clayton immediately decided that he was of another tribe.
This man acted as interpreter, and almost from the first question
that M'ganwazam put to her, Jane felt an intuitive conviction that
the savage was attempting to draw information from her for some
ulterior motive.
She thought it strange that the fellow should so suddenly have
become interested in her plans, and especially in her intended
destination when her journey had been interrupted at his village.
Seeing no reason for withholding the information, she told him the
truth; but when he asked if she expected to meet her husband at
the end of the trip, she shook her head negatively.
Then he told her the purpose of his visit, talking through the
interpreter.
"I have just learned," he said, "from some men who live by the side
of the great water, that your husband followed you up the Ugambi
for several marches, when he was at last set upon by natives and
killed. Therefore I have told you this that you might not waste
your time in a long journey if you expected to meet your husband
at the end of it; but instead could turn and retrace your steps to
the coast."
Jane thanked M'ganwazam for his kindness, though her heart was
numb with suffering at this new blow. She who had suffered so much
was at last beyond reach of the keenest of misery's pangs, for her
senses were numbed and calloused.
With bowed head she sat staring with unseeing eyes upon the face
of the baby in her lap. M'ganwazam had left the hut. Sometime
later she heard a noise at the entrance--another had entered. One
of the women sitting opposite her threw a faggot upon the dying
embers of the fire between them.
With a sudden flare it burst into renewed flame, lighting up the
hut's interior as though by magic.
The flame disclosed to Jane Clayton's horrified gaze that the baby
was quite dead. How long it had been so she could not guess.
A choking lump rose to her throat, her head drooped in silent misery
upon the little bundle that she had caught suddenly to her breast.
For a moment the silence of the hut was unbroken. Then the native
woman broke into a hideous wail.
A man coughed close before Jane Clayton and spoke her name.
With a start she raised her eyes to look into the sardonic countenance
of Nikolas Rokoff.
