Читать книгу A Certain Dr. Thorndyke - R. Austin Freeman - Страница 4

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THE tropic moon shone brightly on the village of Adaffia in the Bight of Benin as a fishing-canoe steered warily through the relatively quiet surf of the dry season towards the steep beach. Out in the roadstead an anchored barque stood up sharply against the moonlit sky, the yellow spark of her riding light glimmering warmly, and a white shape dimly discernible in the approaching canoe hinted of a visitor from the sea. Soon the little craft, hidden for a while in the white smother of a breaking wave, emerged triumphant and pushed her pointed nose up the beach; the occupants leaped out and, seizing her by her inturned gunwales, hauled her forthwith out of reach of the following wave.

"You know where to go?" the Englishman demanded, turning a grim, hatchet face towards the 'headman'. "Don't take me to the wrong house."

The headman grinned. "Only one white man live for Adaffia. Me sabby him proper." He twisted a rag of cotton cloth into a kind of turban, clapped it on his woolly pate and, poising on top a battered cabin-trunk, strode off easily across the waste of blown sand that separated the beach from a forest of coconut palms that hid the village. The Englishman followed less easily, his shod feet sinking into the loose sand; and as he went, he peered with a stranger's curiosity along the deserted beach and into the solemn gloom beneath the palms, whence came the rhythmical clamour of drums and the sound of many voices joining in a strange, monotonous chant.

Through the ghostly colonnade of palm trunks, out into the narrow, tortuous alleys that served for streets, between rows of mud-built hovels roofed with unkempt grass thatch, where all was inky blackness in the shadow and silvery grey in the light, the stranger followed his guide; and ever the noise of the drums and the melancholy chant drew nearer. Suddenly the two men emerged from an alley into a large open space and in an instant passed from the stillness of the empty streets into a scene of the strangest bustle and uproar. In the middle of the space was a group of men, seated on low stools, who held between their knees drums of various sizes, which they were beating noisily, though by no means unskillfully, some with crooked sticks, others with the flat of the hand. Around the musicians a circle of dancers moved in an endless procession, the men and the women forming separate groups; and while the former danced furiously, writhing with starting muscles and streaming skins, in gestures grotesque and obscene, the latter undulated languorously with half-closed eyes and rhythmically moving arms.

The Englishman had halted in the black shadow to look on at this singular scene and to listen to the strange chant that rang out at intervals from dancers and spectators alike, when his guide touched him on the arm and pointed.

"Look, Mastah!" said he; "dem white man live. You look um?"

The stranger looked over the heads of the dancers, and, sure enough, in the very midst of the revellers, he espied a fellow-countryman seated on a green-painted gin-case, the sides of which he was pounding with his fists in unsuccessful emulation of the drummers. He was not a spectacle to engender undue pride of race. To begin with, he was obviously drunk, and as he drummed on the case and bellowed discordantly at intervals, he was not dignified. Perhaps to be drunk and dignified at one and the same time is not easy, and assuredly the task is made no easier by a costume consisting of a suit of ragged pyjamas, the legs tucked into scarlet socks, gaudy carpet slippers, and a skullcap of plaited grass. But such was the garb of this representative of a superior race, and the final touch was given to a raffish ensemble by an unlit cigar that waggled from the corner of his mouth.

The stranger stood for a minute or more watching, in silence and with grim disapproval, this unedifying spectacle, when a sudden interruption occurred. One of the dancers, a big, powerful ruffian, in giving an extra flourish to his performance, struck his foot against the gin-case and staggered on to the seated white man, who, with a loud, foolish laugh, caught him playfully by the ankle. As a result, the big negro toppled over and fell sprawling amongst the drummers. In an instant all was confusion and uproar. The drummers pummelled the fallen man, the women howled, the men shouted, and the drunken white man yelled with idiotic laughter. Then the big negro leaped to his feet with a roar of fury, and rushing at the white man, closed with him. The gin-case turned turtle at the first onset, the two combatants flew off gyrating amongst the legs of the crowd, mowing down a little lane as they went; and for some moments nothing could be distinguished save a miscellaneous heap of black bodies and limbs with a pair of carpet slippers kicking wildly in the air. But the white man, if lacking in dignity and discretion, was not deficient in valour. He was soon on his feet and hitting out right and left with uncommon liveliness and spirit. This, however, could not, and did not, last long; a simultaneous rush of angry negroes soon bore him to the ground and there seemed every prospect of his being very severely mauled.

It was at this moment that the stranger abandoned his role of a neutral spectator. Taking off his helmet and depositing it carefully in the angle of a mud wall, he lowered his head, thrust forward his shoulder, and charged heavily into the midst of the shouting mob. Now, the Slave Coast native is a sturdy, courageous fellow and truculent withal; but he does not play the Rugby game and he is a stranger alike to the subtler aspects of pugilism and the gentle art of ju-jitsu. Consequently the tactics of the new assailant created quite a sensation among the Adaffia men. Their heels flew up unaccountably, their heads banged together from unknown causes, mysterious thumps, proceeding from nowhere in particular with the weight of a pile-monkey, stretched them gasping on the earth; and when they would have replied in kind, behold! the enemy was not there! They rushed at him with outstretched hands and straightway fell upon their stomachs; they grabbed at his head and caught nothing but a pain in the shoulder or a tap under the chin; and the sledge hammer blow that was to have annihilated him either spent itself on empty air or, impinging upon the countenance of an ally, led to misunderstanding and confusion. Hampered by their own numbers and baffled by the incredible quickness of their elusive adversary, they began to view his strange manoeuvres as feats of magic. The fire of battle died down, giving place to doubt, bewilderment, and superstitious fear. The space widened round the white, silent, swiftly-moving figure; the more faint-hearted made off with their hands clapped to their mouths, screeching forth the hideous Efé alarm cry; the panic spread, and the remainder first backed away and then fairly broke into a run. A minute later the place was deserted save or the two Europeans and the headman.

The stranger had pursued the retreating mob for some distance, tripping up the stragglers or accelerating their movements by vigorous hammerings from behind, and he now returned, straightening out his drill jacket and dusting the grimy sand from his pipe-clayed shoes with a silk handkerchief. The other white man had by this time returned to the gin-case, on which he was once more enthroned with one of the abandoned drums between his knees, and, as his compatriot approached, he executed a martial roll and would have burst into song but that the cigar, which had been driven into his mouth during the conflict, now dropped into his throat and reduced him temporarily to the verge of suffocation.

"Many thanks, dear chappie," said he, when he had removed the obstruction; "moral s'pport most valuable; uphold dignity of white man; congratulate you on your style; do credit to Richardsons. Excuse my not rising; reasons excellent; will appear when I do." In fact his clothing had suffered severely in the combat.

The stranger looked down at the seated figure silently and with tolerant contempt. A stern-faced, grim-looking man was this new-comer, heavy-browed, square-jawed, and hatchet-faced, and his high-shouldered, powerful figure set itself in a characteristic pose, with the feet wide apart and the hands clasped behind the back as he stood looking down on his new acquaintance.

"I suppose," he said, at length, "you realize that you're as drunk as an owl?"

"I s'spected it," returned the other gravely. "Not's an owl, though; owls very temp'rate in these parts."

At this moment the headman rose from the cabin-trunk, on which he had seated himself to view the conflict, and, picking up the stranger's helmet, brought it to him.

"Mastah," said he, earnestly, "you go for house one time. Dis place no good. Dem people be angry too much; he go fetch gun."

"You hear that?" said the stranger. "You'd better clear off home."

"Ver' well, dear boy," replied the other, suavely. "Call hansom; we'll both go."

"Whereabouts do you live?" demanded the stranger.

The other man looked up with a bland smile. "Grosvenor Square, ol' fellow, A1; brass knocker 'stinguishers on doorstep. Tell cabby knock three times and ring bottom bell." He picked up the cigar and began carefully to wipe the sand from it.

"Do you know where he lives?" asked the stranger, turning to the headman.

"Yass; me sabby. He live for factory. You make him come one time, Mastah. You hear dat?"

The sound of the strange and dismal Efé alarm cry (produced by shouting or screaming continuously and patting the mouth quickly with the flat of the hand) was borne down from the farther end of the village. The headman caught up the trunk and started off up the street, while the stranger, having hoisted the seated man off the gin-case with such energy that he staggered round in a half-circle, grasped him from behind by both arms and urged him forward at a brisk trot.

"Here, I say!" protested the latter, "nosso fast, d'ye hear? I've dropped my slipper. Lemme pick up my slipper."

To these protests the stranger paid no attention, but continued to hustle his captive forward with undiminished energy.

"Lemme go, confound you! You're shaking me all to bits!" exclaimed the captive; and, as the other continued to shove silently, he continued: "Now I un'stand why you boosted those niggers so neatly. You're a bobby, that's what you are. I know the professional touch. A blooming escaped bobby. Well, I'm jiggered!" He lapsed, after this, into gloomy silence, and a few minutes' more rapid travelling brought the party to a high palm-leaf fence. A primitive gate was unfastened, by the simple process of withdrawing a skewer from a loop of cord, and they entered a compound in the middle of which stood a long, low house. The latter was mud-built and thatched with grass like the houses in the village, from which, indeed, it differed only in that its mud walls were whitewashed and pierced for several windows.

"Lemme welcome you to my humble cot," said the proprietor, following the headman, who had unceremoniously walked into the house and dumped down the cabin-trunk. The stranger entered a small, untidy room lighted by a hurricane-lamp, and, having dismissed the headman with a substantial 'dash', or present, turned to face his host.

"Siddown," said the latter, dropping into a dilapidated Madeira chair and waving his hand towards another. "Less' have a talk. Don't know your name, but you seem to be a decent feller—for a bobby. My name's Larkom, John Larkom, agent for Foster Brothers. This is Fosters' factory."

The stranger looked curiously round the room—so little suggestive of a factory in the European sense—and then, as he seated himself, said: "You probably know me by name: I am John Walker, of whom you have—"

He was interrupted by a screech of laughter from Larkom, who flung himself back in his chair with such violence as to bring that piece of furniture to the verge of dissolution.

"Johnny Walker!" he howled. "My immortal scissors! Sh'ld think I do know you; more senses than one. I've got a letter about you—'ll show it to you. Where is that blamed letter?" He dragged out a table-drawer and rooted among a litter of papers, from which he at length extracted a crumpled sheet of paper. "Here we are. Letter from Hepburn. You 'member Hepburn? He and I at Oxford together. Merton, y'know. Less see what he says. Ah! here you are; I'll read it: 'And now I want you to do me a little favour. You will receive a visit from a pal of mine who, in consequence of certain little indiscretions, is for the moment under a cloud, and I want you, if you can, to put him up and keep him out of sight. His fame I am not permitted to disclose, since being, as I have said, 'sub nube', just at present, and consequently not in search of fame or notoriety he elects to travel under the modest and appropriate name of Walker.'" At this point Larkom once more burst into a screech of laughter. "Funny devil, Hepburn! awful rum devil," he mumbled, leering idiotically at the letter that shook in his hand; then, wiping his eyes on the gaudy 'trade' tablecloth, he resumed his reading. "'He need not cause you any inconvenience, and you won't mind his company as he is quite a decent fellow—he entered at Merton just after you went down—and he won't be any expense to you; in fact, with judicious management, he may be made to yield a profit, since he will have some money with him and is, between ourselves, somewhat of a mug.' Rum devil, awful rum devil," sniggered Larkom. "Doncher think so?" he added, grinning foolishly in the other man's face.

"Very," replied the stranger, stolidly. But he did not look particularly amused.

"'I think that is all I have to tell you,'" Larkom continued, reading from the letter. "'I hope you will be able to put the poor devil up, and, by the way, you need not let on that I have told you about his little misfortunes.'" Larkom looked up with a ridiculous air of vexation. "There now," he exclaimed, "I've given old Hepburn away like a silly fool. But no, it was he that was a silly fool. He shouldn't have told me."

"No, he should not," agreed Walker.

"'Course not," said Larkom with drunken gravity. "Breach o' confidence. However, 's all right. 'Pend on me. Close as a lock-jawed oyster. What'll you drink?"

He waved his hand towards the table, on which a plate of limes, a stone gin jar, a bottle of bitters with a quill stuck through the cork, and a swizzle-stick, stained purple by long service, invited to conviviality.

"Have a cocktail," said Larkom. "Wine of the country. Good old swizzle-stick. I'll mix it. Or p'rhaps," he sniggered, slyly, "p'raps you'd rather have a drop of Johnny Walker—ha! ha! Hallo! Here they are. D'ye hear 'em?" A confused noise of angry voices was audible outside the compound and isolated shouts separated themselves now and again from the general hubbub.

"They're callin' us names," chuckled Larkom. "Good thing you don't un'stand the language. The nigger can be rude. Personal abuse as a fine art. Have a cocktail."

"Hadn't I better go out and send them about their business?" asked Walker.

"Lor' bless you, they haven't got any business," was the reply. "No, siddown. Lerrum alone and they'll go home. Have a cocktail." He compounded one for himself, swizzling up the pink mixture with deliberate care and pouring it down his throat with the skill of a juggler; and when Walker had declined the refreshment and lit his pipe, the pair sat and listened to the threats and challenges from the outer darkness. The attitude of masterly inactivity was justified by its results, for the noise subsided by degrees, and presently the rumble of drums and the sound of chanting voices told them that the interrupted revels had been resumed.

After the third application to the stone bottle Larkom began to grow sleepy and subsided into silence, broken at intervals by an abortive snore. Walker meanwhile smoked his pipe and regarded his host with an air of gloomy meditation. At length, as the latter became more and more somnolent, he ventured to rouse him up.

"You haven't said what you are going to do, Larkom," said he. "Are you going to put me up for a time?"

Larkom sat up in the squeaking chair and stared at him owlishly. "Put you up, ol' f'ler?" said he. "Lor bless you, yes. Wodjer think? Bed been ready for you for mor'n a week. Come'n look at it. Gettin' dam late. Less' turn in." He took up the lamp and walked with unsteady steps through a doorway into a small, bare room, the whitewashed walls of which were tastefully decorated with the mud-built nests of solitary wasps. It contained two bedsteads, each fitted with a mosquito net and furnished with a mattress, composed of bundles of rushes lashed together, and covered with a grass mat.

"Thash your doss, ol' f'ler," said Larkom, placing the lamp on the packing-case that served for a table, "this is mine. Goo' night!" He lifted the mosquito-curtain, crept inside, tucked the curtain under the mattress, and forthwith began to snore softly.

Walker fetched in his trunk from the outer room, and, as he exchanged his drill clothes (which he folded carefully as he removed them) for a suit of pyjamas, he looked curiously round the room. A huge, hairy spider was spread out on the wall as if displayed in a collector's cabinet, and above him a brown cockroach of colossal proportions twirled his long antennae thoughtfully. The low, bumpy ceiling formed a promenade for two pallid, goggle-eyed lizards, who strolled about, defiant of the laws of gravity, picking up an occasional moth or soft-shelled beetle as they went. When he was half undressed an enormous fruit-bat, with a head like that of a fox-terrier, blundered in through the open window and flopped about the room in noisy panic for several minutes before it could find its way out again.

At length he put out the lamp, and creeping inside his curtain, tucked it in securely; and soon, despite the hollow boom of the surf, the whistle of multitudinous bats, the piping of the mosquitoes, and the sounds of revelry from the village, he fell asleep and slept until the sun streamed in on to the whitewashed wall.