Читать книгу Sandi the King-Maker - Edgar Wallace - Страница 7

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A LONG broad-beamed boat was pushing her way through the black waters which swirled and eddied against her bow. She was painted a dazzling white, and her two high smoke-stacks were placed one behind the other, giving her an appearance of stolidity which was very satisfactory to the young man who had constituted himself her chief officer. The open lower deck was a few feet over the water-line, and seemed at a distance to be decorated with bright scarlet poppies. Near at hand these resolved themselves into the new red tarbooshes of the native soldiers who crowded the iron deck. Above was another deck, from which opened the doors and latticed windows of a dozen cabins. Two or three deep-seated wicker chairs and a light table were disposed on the clear space under the big awning aft, but this space reserved for the hours of leisure was deserted. Three men in white duck trousers and coatless stood on the little navigating bridge where the shining brass telegraphs stood, and behind them, raised on a grated dais, a native, bare to the waist, held a polished wheel.

The ship was named Zaire II, and the big searchlight on the bridge, the quick-firing guns which were swung out over each side, the tiny ensign which fluttered at her one mast, all these things stood for the expectation of war.

The ship was running between sheer rock walls, and the passage was growing narrower. Already the water at the Zaire's bow was piled up to the height of three feet above the level of the river, and the hull shivered and strained at every thud of the engine.

"We're only making five knots," said the troubled Sanders, "and we're nowhere near the worst part of the rapids."

He pointed ahead to where the flanking walls of the canyon rose to a greater height.

"Hell Gate properly begins at that bend." he said. "They've a full head of steam below, Bones?"

Bones was mopping his steaming face with a handkerchief coloured violently.

"A swollen head of steam, dear old Excellency." he said solemnly, and added unnecessarily: "Trust old Bones."

Behind the steersman was the broad open door of a cabin. It was plain but pleasantly furnished, but for the bizarre Thing which stood by the side of the white-covered bed.

Hamilton, major of Houssas, lolling with his back to the rail, caught a glimpse of this gaudy ornament and smiled, though he was in no smiling humour, for the country had brought afresh to him all the dreams he had dreamt in olden times, and, since those dreams and memories revolved about a capricious girl who had found her happiness in material things, they brought him little comfort.

"At least Guy Fawkes is enjoying the trip, sir." he said.

"Guy Fawkes?" Sanders was startled from his own thoughts. "Oh, you mean my bete?"

With a glance at the river ahead, he walked to the door of his cabin, Hamilton at his elbow, and looked in.

Held by two iron brackets in the wall was the most uncouth idol that Hamilton had ever seen. Its head, carved in wood, was painted green, save for its scarlet lips, and from the sides of its head sprouted a pair of ears which might be—and were, in fact—used as handles to lift the monstrosity. The body, painted fantastically, was pear—shaped, and the three squat vermilion legs on which it was supported added to its grotesqueness.

"Guy Fawkes ought to create a sensation in the Old King's country, if we—" He stopped.

"If we get there," finished Sanders quietly. "Well, the next few hours will decide that. Yes, he's rather beautiful, isn't he?"

"I don't quite understand, sir," said Hamilton. "It isn't like you to—er—"

"'Descend' is the word you want," smiled Sanders of the River.

"Well, yes. I've never known you to attempt the placation of a chief by mumbo-jumbery. That sort of thing is usually done in story-books; it isn't done on the river."

"We're going to a new country and a new people," said Sanders, "and that is my excuse. And Guy Fawkes will not burn," he added meaningly.

"Not—Oh, I see! You mean the Old King is burning his gifts....Guy Fawkes is made of iron, and will not burn. And you think that if it doesn't burn he'll be impressed?"

"They have never had a steel bete in this country before," said Sanders, and turned back to the bridge.

"Bones, come here." Hamilton beckoned him. "What do you think of Guy?"

Bones shook his head.

"He's a pretty old dear," he said, "but I wish I'd had the painting of him. Have you ever thought, dear old major and comrade, what I could have made of him with a few jolly old art shades?"

"Sanders thinks that when the Old King discovers that he won't burn—"

Hamilton was on the point of unburdening himself of his troubles, but changed his mind, and at that moment Sanders beckoned him.

"We're near to the crux of our situation," he said grimly. "Set twenty of your men at each side of the ship, and give them the poles I took aboard at the Isisi city. The current will probably drive us against one or the other wall of this ravine. Your men are to pole off the ship from the side."

Hamilton disappeared down the iron ladder which led to the lower deck.

The precaution was taken only in time. Ten minutes later the Zaire pounded slowly round the bend of the "gate" and the fierce current caught her. Slowly but surely she drifted over until the crest of the high cliff hung above her mast.

Nearer and nearer to the wall she drifted, her stem swinging the quicker. Then, when it seemed certain that she would smash against the smooth yellow rock, a dozen poles were thrust against the wall, a dozen sweating men grunted and strained, and the stern came out again.

The pressure of the river was now beyond anything Sanders had seen. The bows of the Zaire gathered water as a broom gathers snow. It sloped down almost from the rail above the bow like a big fluid hillside.

"More steam," said Sanders laconically, for the Zaire was practically at a standstill.

The smoke-stacks flamed, bellowing huge clouds of sparks, and slowly the boat moved forward. They pushed into what was by comparison slick water, and gathered their strength for the next bend. Here, so powerful was the force of the current, the river literally canted to one side, being, as Sanders judged, fully three feet higher on one bank than the other. 'Bank' was a courtesy term, for the cliffs fell sheer, and where the river ran to the left, the waters had scooped out a huge hollow, so that in places the river's edge disappeared from view. Though the sun was still high in the western sky, the canyon was in semi-darkness, so high were its walls.

"We'll run the searchlight off the storage batteries," said Sanders. "Be economical, Bones. I can't afford an ounce of steam for the dynamo, and as likely as not we'll be in this infernal hole till nightfall."

He was worried, yet felt the thrill and exhilaration of the fight. No boat had ever passed upstream through Hell Gate, though many had come down with the current. He remembered with a wince the half-mad wife of the dead missionary Ferguson, who had fled through this canon in a crazy little launch. Just then he did not want to think of missionaries—or their golden-haired daughters.

"The next bend is the worst," he said to Hamilton. "If we get through, we shall be at Rimi-Rimi tonight. I have an idea that the river is not watched as is the mountain road, and we ought to fetch up at the king's city without his being any the wiser."

The safety-valves of the Zaire's engines were hissing ominously as he put the nose of the boat to the last bend.

Then came Bones from below, Bones in soiled duck and with patches of black grease on his face.

"Cylinder leakin', sir," he said lugubriously, and Sanders could have wept.