The Gorilla Hunters, R. M. Ballantyne [chrysanthemum read aloud .TXT] 📗

The king at once agreed to Jack’s proposal that a grand pursuit should take place, to commence the instant news should be brought in by the scouts. But the news, when it did come, had the effect of totally altering our plans.

The first scout who returned told us that he had fallen in with a large body of the enemy encamped on the margin of a small pond. Creeping like a snake through the grass, he succeeded in getting near enough to overhear the conversation, from which he gathered two important pieces of information—namely, that they meant to return to their own lands in a north-easterly direction, and that their prisoners had escaped by means of a canoe which they found on the banks of the river that flowed past King Jambai’s village.

The first piece of information decided the king to assemble his followers, and go off in pursuit of them at once; the second piece of news determined us to obtain a canoe and follow Mbango and his companions to the sea-coast, whither, from all that we heard, we concluded they must certainly have gone. As this, however, was a journey of many weeks, we had to take the matter into serious consideration.

“It is quite evident,” said Jack, as we sat over our supper on the night after receiving the above news—“it is quite evident that they mean to go to the coast, for Mbango had often expressed to Mak a wish to go there; and the mere fact of their having been seen to escape and take down stream, is in itself pretty strong evidence that they did not mean to return to their now desolated village, seeing that the country behind them is swarming with enemies; and of course they cannot know that we have conquered the main body of these rascals. I therefore propose that we should procure a canoe and follow them: first, because we must at all hazards get hold of poor Okandaga, and relieve the anxiety of our faithful guide Makarooroo; and second, because it is just as well to go in that direction as in any other, in order to meet with wild animals, and see the wonders of this land.”

“But what if King Jambai takes it into his black woolly head to decline to let us go?” said Peterkin.

“In that case we must take French leave of him.”

“In which case,” said I, in some alarm, “all my specimens of natural history will be lost.”

Jack received this remark with a shake of his head and a look of great perplexity; and Peterkin said, “Ah, Ralph, I fear there’s no help for it. You must make up your mind to say good-bye to your mummies—big puggies and all.”

“But you do not know,” said I energetically, “that Jambai will detain us against our will.”

“Certainly not,” replied Jack; “and for your sake I hope that he will not. At any rate I will go to see him about this point after supper. It’s of no use presenting a petition either to king, lord, or common while his stomach is empty. But there is another thing that perplexes me: that poor sick child, Njamie’s son, must not be left behind. The poor distracted mother has no doubt given him up for lost. It will be like getting him back from the grave.”

“True,” said I; “we must take him with us. Yet I fear he is too ill to travel, and we cannot await his recovery.”

“He is not so ill as he seemed,” observed Peterkin. “I went to see him only half an hour ago, and the little chap was quite hearty, and glad to see me. The fact is, he has been ill-used and ill-fed. The rest and good treatment he has received have, even in the short time he has been here, quite revived him.”

“Good,” said Jack; “then he shall go with us. I’ll engage to take him on my back when he knocks up on the march—for we have a march before us, as I shall presently explain—and when we get into a canoe he will be able to rest.”

“But what march do you refer to?” I asked.

“Simply this. Mak, with whom I have had a good deal of conversation on the subject, tells me that the river makes a considerable bend below this village, and that by taking a short cut of a day’s journey or so over land we can save time, and will reach a small hamlet where canoes are to be had. The way, to be sure, is through rather a wild country; but that to us is an advantage, as we shall be the more likely to meet with game. I find, also, that the king has determined to follow the same route with his warriors in pursuit of the enemy, so that thus far we may travel together. At the hamlet we will diverge to the north-east, while we, if all goes well, embarking in our canoe, will proceed toward the west coast, where, if we do not overtake them on the way, we shall be certain to find them on our arrival. Okandaga has often longed to go to the mission station there, and as she knows it is in vain to urge Mbango to return to his destroyed village, she will doubtless advise him to go to the coast.”

“What you say seems highly probable,” said I; “and I think the best thing you can do is to go to the king at once and talk him over.”

“Trust Jack for that,” added Peterkin, who was at that moment deeply engaged with what he called the drumstick of a roast monkey. “Jack would talk over any creature with life, so persuasive is his eloquence. I say, Ralph,” he added, holding the half-picked drumstick at arm’s length, and regarding it with a critical gaze, “I wonder, now, how the drumstick of an ostrich would taste. Good, I have no doubt, though rather large for one man’s dinner.”

“It would be almost equal to gorilla ham, I should fancy,” said Jack, as he left the hut on his errand to the king.

“O you cannibal, to think of such a thing!” cried Peterkin, throwing the bone of his drumstick after our retreating comrade.—“But ’tis always thus,” he added, with a sigh: “man preys upon man, monkey upon monkey. Yet I had hoped better things of Jack. I had believed him to be at least a refined species of gorilla. I say, Ralph, what makes you look so lugubrious?”

“The difficulties, I suppose, that beset our path,” said I sadly; for, to say truth, I did not feel in a jesting humour just then. I was forced, however, in spite of myself, to laugh at the expression of mingled disgust and surprise that overspread the mobile countenance of my friend on hearing my reply.

“‘The difficulties,’” echoed he, “‘that beset our path!’ Really, Ralph, life will become insupportable to me if you and Jack go on in this fashion. A man of nerve and sanguine temperament might stand it, but to one like me, of a naturally timid and leaning nature, with the addition of low spirits, it is really crushing—quite crushing.”

I laughed, and replied that he must just submit to be crushed, as it was impossible for Jack and me to change our dispositions to suit his convenience; whereupon he sighed, lighted his pipe, and began to smoke vehemently.

In the course of little more than an hour Jack returned, accompanied by Makarooroo, and from the satisfied expression of their faces I judged that they had been successful.

“Ah! I see; it’s all right,” said Peterkin, raising himself on one elbow as they entered the hut and seated themselves beside the fire. “Old Jambai has been ‘talked over.’”

“Right; but he needed a deal of talk—he was horribly obstinate,” said Jack.

“Ho, yis; ho! ho! horribubly obsterlate,” added Makarooroo in corroboration, rubbing his hands and holding his nose slyly over the bowl of Peterkin’s pipe, in order to enjoy, as it were, a second-hand whiff.

“Here, there’s a bit for yourself, old boy. Sit down and enjoy yourself while Jack tells us all about his interview with royalty,” said Peterkin, handing a lump of tobacco to our guide, whose eyes glistened and white teeth gleamed as he received the much-prized gift.

Jack now explained to us that he had found the king in a happy state of satiety, smoking in his very curious and uneasy-looking easy-chair; that he had at first begged and entreated him (Jack) to stay and take command of his warriors, and had followed up his entreaties with a hint that it was just possible he might adopt stronger measures if entreaty failed.

To this Jack replied in a long speech, in which he pointed out the impossibility of our complying with the king’s request under present circumstances, and the absolute necessity of our returning at some period or other to our native land to tell our people of the wonders we had seen in the great country of King Jambai. Observing that his arguments did not make much impression on the king, he brought up his reserve force to the attack, and offered all the remainder of our goods as a free gift to his majesty, stipulating only that he (the king) should, in consideration thereof, carefully send our boxes of specimens down to the coast, where the messengers, on arriving, should be handsomely paid if everything should arrive safely and in good order.

These liberal offers had a visible influence on the sable monarch, whose pipe indicated the state of his mind pretty clearly—thin wreaths of smoke issuing therefrom when he did not sympathise with Jack’s reasoning, and thick voluminous clouds revolving about his woolly head, and involving him, as it were, in a veil of gauze, when he became pleasantly impressed. When Jack made mention of the valuable gifts above referred to, his head and shoulders were indistinctly visible amid the white cloudlets; and when he further offered to supply him with a few hundreds of the magical paper balls that had so effectually defeated his enemies the day before, the upper part of his person was obliterated altogether in smoke.

This last offer of Jack’s we deemed a great stroke of politic wisdom, for thereby he secured that the pending war should be marked by the shedding of less blood than is normal in such cases. He endeavoured further to secure this end by assuring the king that the balls would be useless for the purpose for which they were made if any other substance should be put into the gun along with them, and that they would only accomplish the great end of putting the enemy to flight if fired at them in one tremendous volley at a time when the foe had no idea of the presence of an enemy.

All things being thus amicably arranged, we retired to rest, and slept soundly until daybreak, when we were awakened by the busy sounds of preparation in the village for the intended pursuit.

We, too, made active arrangements for a start, and soon after were trooping over the plains and through the jungle in the rear of King Jambai’s army, laden with such things as we required for our journey to the coast, and Jack, besides his proportion of our food, bedding, cooking utensils, etcetera, carrying Njamie’s little sick boy on his broad shoulders.