Читать книгу The Fugitives: The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar - Robert Michael Ballantyne - Страница 3

The spot where our adventurers found themselves on issuing from the mysterious cave was a peculiarly rugged one. It formed a sort of hollow or depression in the forest-land in which we introduced the three men as fugitives. From this hollow there descended a narrow track or pathway to the extensive valley which had been seen from the summit of the precipice that barred their flight, and had so nearly proved fatal.

So confused was the nature of the ground here, and so intricate were the tracks—originally formed no doubt by wild animals, though made use of by wandering men—that it became impossible for Mark Breezy to know in what direction he was leading his comrades as he wound in and out among large rocks and fallen trees. In fact it was more by chance than guidance that they ultimately hit upon the path which finally led them to the lower region or plateau of forest-land; and it is certain that they would have found it impossible to find their way back to the cave, even had they desired to do so.

Their chief object, however, was to put as much space as possible between themselves and their late pursuers, and to this end they pushed forward at their best speed, until they reached a small river which appeared to be a tributary to, or a branch of, that which they had seen from the heights earlier in the day.

murmured Ebony, quoting an ancient ditty.

“We shall have to swim it, I fear,” remarked Breezy, “for there is no horse here, blind or otherwise. Perhaps that fallen tree may prove strong enough to serve as a bridge.”

He pointed to a slender tree which had evidently been placed there, with several others, for the purpose of forming a rough and ready bridge; but its companions had been removed by floods, for they lay tossed on the bank further down among other wreckage.

“It’ll be somethin’ like tight-rope dancin’,” said the sailor. “We’ll have to repair the bridge.”

“Nuffin’ ob de sort! Look here.”

Ebony ran to the tree referred to, and skipped over with admirable agility, though it bent under him not unlike a tight-rope.

“But I can’t do that,” said Hockins, “not bein’ a black monkey, d’ee see?”

With a sudden expression of intense pity the negro exclaimed—

“Oh! I beg pardin’. Didn’t I forgot; you’s on’y a white man. But stop; I come ober agin an’ took you on my back.”

He pretended to be on the point of recrossing, but the sailor had already got upon the bridge, and, with much balancing and waving of his long arms, passed over in safety. Mark was about to follow, when Hockins called out, “Better pitch over the powder-flask in case you fall in.”

“That’s true, for I mayn’t be as good as you or Ebony on the tight-rope. Look out!”

He pulled the powder-flask out of his pocket and threw it towards his comrades. Unfortunately the branch of an overhanging bush had touched his hand. The touch was slight, but it sufficed to divert the flask from its proper course, and sent it into the middle of the stream.

Ebony followed it head first like an otter, but soon reappeared, gasping and unsuccessful. Again and again he dived, but failed to find the flask, without which, of course, their gun was useless, and at last they were obliged to continue their flight without it.

This was a very serious loss, for they had not an ounce of provisions with them, and were in a land the character and resources of which were utterly unknown at least to two of them, while the youth who had become their leader knew very little more than the fact that it was the island of Madagascar, that it lay about 300 miles off the eastern shores of Africa, and that the tribes by whom they were surrounded were little if at all better than savages.

That day they wandered far into the depths of a dark and tangled forest, intentionally seeking its gloomiest recesses in order to avoid the natives, and at night went supperless to rest among the branches of an umbrageous tree, not knowing what danger from man or beast might assail them if they should venture to sleep on the ground.

Although possessed of flint and steel, as well as tinder, they did not use them for fear of attracting attention. As they had nothing to cook, the deprivation was not great. Fortunately the weather at the time was pleasantly warm, so that beyond the discomfort of not being able to stretch out at full length, the occasional poking of awkward knots and branches into their ribs, and the constant necessity of holding on lest they should fall off, their circumstances were not insufferable, and might have been worse.

While they are enjoying their repose, we will tell in a few sentences who they were and how they got there.

When Mark Breezy, in the closing years of his medical-student career, got leave to go on a voyage to China in one of his father’s ships, the Eastern Star, for the benefit of his health and the enlargement of his understanding, he had no more idea that that voyage would culminate in a bed up a tree in the forests of Madagascar than you, reader, have that you will ultimately become an inhabitant of the moon! The same remark may with equal truth be made of John Hockins when he joined the Eastern Star as an able seaman, and of James Ginger—alias Ebony—when he shipped as cook. If the captain of the Eastern Star had introduced those three,—who had never seen each other before—and told them that they would spend many months together among savages in the midst of terrestrial beauty, surrounded by mingled human depravity and goodness, self-denial and cruelty, fun and tragedy such as few men are fated to experience, they would have smiled at each other with good-natured scepticism and regarded their captain as a facetious lunatic.

Yet so it turned out, though the captain prophesied it not—and this was the way of it.

Becalmed off the coast of Madagascar, and having, through leakage in one of the tanks, run short of water, the captain ordered a boat with casks to be got ready to go ashore for water. The young doctor got leave to land and take his gun for the purpose of procuring specimens—for he was something of a naturalist—and having a ramble.

“Don’t get out of hail, Doctor,” said the captain, as the boat shoved off.

“All right, sir, I won’t.”

“An’ take a couple o’ the men into the bush with you in case of accidents.”

“Ay ay, sir,” responded Mark, waving his hand in acknowledgment.

And that was the last that Mark Breezy and the captain of the Eastern Star saw of each other for many a day.

“Who will go with me?” asked Mark, when the boat touched the shore.

“Me, massa,” eagerly answered the negro cook, who had gone ashore in the hope of being able to get some fresh vegetables from the natives if any were to be found living there. “Seems to me dere’s no black mans here, so may’s well try de woods for wild wegibles.”

“No no, Ebony,” said the first mate, who had charge of the boat, “you’ll be sure to desert if we let you go—unless we send Hockins to look after you. He’s the only man that can keep you in order.”

“Well, I’ll take Hockins also,” said Mark, “you heard the captain say I was to have two men. Will you go, Hockins?”

“Ay, ay, sir,” answered the seaman, sedately, but with a wrinkle or two on his visage which proved that the proposal was quite to his taste.

All the men of the boat’s crew were armed either with cutlass or carbine—in some cases with both; for although the natives were understood to be friendly at that part of the coast it was deemed prudent to be prepared for the reverse. Thus John Hockins carried a cutlass in his belt, but no fire-arm, and the young doctor had his double-barrelled gun, with powder-flask and shot-belt, but Ebony—being a free-and-easy, jovial sort of nigger—went unarmed, saying he “didn’t want to carry no harms, seein’ he would need all harms he had to carry back de fresh wegibles wid.”

Thus those three went into the bush, promising to keep well within ear-shot, and to return instantly at the first summons.

That summons came—not as a shout, as had been expected, but as a shot—about an hour after the landing. Our explorers ran to the top of a neighbouring mound in some surprise, not unmixed with anxiety. Before they reached the summit a volley from the direction of the sea, followed by fierce yells, told that some sort of evil was going on. Another moment, and they reached the eminence just in time to behold their boat’s crew pulling off shore while a band of at least a hundred savages attacked them—some rushing into the water chest-deep in order to seize the boat. Cutlass and carbine, however, proved more than a match for stone and spear.

The fight had scarce lasted a minute, and our trio were on the point of rushing down to the rescue, when a white cloud burst from the side of the Eastern Star, the woods and cliffs echoed with the roar of a big gun, and a shot, plunging into the crowd of natives, cut down many of them and went crashing into the bushes.

It was enough. The natives turned and fled while the boat pulled to the ship.

Uncertainty as to what should be done kept Mark Breezy and his companions rooted for a few seconds to the spot. Indecision was banished, however, when they suddenly perceived a band of thirty or forty natives moving stealthily towards them by a circuitous route, evidently with the intention of taking them in rear and preventing them from finding shelter in the woods.

It was the first time that the young student’s manhood had been put severely to the test. There was a rush of hot blood to his forehead, and his heart beat powerfully as he saw and realised the hopelessness of their case with such tremendous odds against them.

“We can die but once,” he said with forced calmness, as he cocked his gun and prepared to defend himself.

“I’s not a-goin’ to die at all,” said the negro, hastily tightening his belt, “I’s a-goin’ to squatilate.”

“And you?” said Mark, turning to the seaman.

“Run, says I, of coorse,” replied Hockins, with something between a grin and a scowl; “ye know the old song—him wot fights an’ runs away, may live to fight another day!”

“Come along, then!” cried Mark, who felt that whether they fought or ran he was bound to retain the leadership of his little party.

As we have seen, they ran to some purpose. No doubt if they had started on equal terms, the lithe, hardy, and almost naked savages would have soon overtaken them, but fortunately a deep gully lay between them and the party of natives who had first observed them. Before this was crossed the fugitives were over the second ridge of rolling land that lay between the thick woods and the sea, and when the savages at last got upon their track and began steadily to overhaul them, the white men had got fairly into the forest.

Still there would have been no chance of ultimate escape if they had not come upon the footpath down the precipice which we have described as having been partly carried away by falling rocks, thus enabling Hockins and his companions to make a scramble for life which no one but a sailor, a monkey, or a hero, would have dared, and the impossibility of even attempting which never occurred to the pursuers, who concluded, as we have seen, that the white men had been dashed to pieces on the rocks far below.

Whether they afterwards found out their mistake or not we cannot tell.

The reason—long afterwards ascertained—of this unprovoked attack on the boat’s crew, was the old story. A party of godless white men had previously visited that part of the coast and treated the poor natives with great barbarity, thus stirring up feelings of hatred and revenge against all white men—at least for the time being. In this way the innocent are too often made to suffer for the guilty.

We will now return to our friends in the tree.