Harold Bindloss - Long Odds

He was listening intently, but could hear nothing except an occasional rustling among the creepers and the heavy splash of moisture on the leaves. Nor could he see very much, for though here and there a star shown down between the towering trunks, a sour white steam hung almost a man's height about the dripping undergrowth. Save for the splash of moisture it was so still that Nares, with imagination quickened by the tension the fever had laid upon his nerves, could almost fancy he could hear things growing. The growth, at least was characteristic of the country in that it was untrammeled, luxuriant, and destructive rather than beneficent. Orchids and parasites sucked the life blood from the trees, and throve upon their ruin; creepers strangled them and tore them down half-rotten. It was a mad, cruel struggle for existence, and Ormsgill, whose hot hands were clenched upon the rifle, clearly recognized that man must take his part in it. As a matter of fact, he was not averse to doing so. There was a vein of combativeness in him, and circumstances had hitherto usually forced him well to the front when there was trouble anywhere in his vicinity.

What he and Nares talked about was of no particular consequence. They were men whose inner thoughts only became apparent now and then, and their conversation largely concerned the merits of certain Congolese cigars. By and by, however, Nares stopped abruptly, as a hand that evidently did not belong to his companion touched his arm, but it was characteristic of him that he did not start. He looked round instead, and saw an indistinct and shadowy figure rise out of the undergrowth. It pointed up the trail, and Ormsgill, who seemed to listen for a moment or two, nodded.

"I really think Lieutenant Luiz meant us to take the other road," he said. "That must be Domingo bringing down another drove, and as it is evidently a big one it is just as well we didn't meet him on the trail. Domingo doesn't like either of us, and he has been getting truculent lately."

Nares said nothing, and a faint patter of naked feet that grew steadily louder crept out of the silence. It was dragging and listless, the shuffle of weary and hopeless men; and it was evident that the hammock boy who sank down again into the undergrowth close beside Ormsgill was badly afraid. Five minutes later a shadowy figure appeared among the trees below them where the mist was thinner, grew a trifle plainer as it slipped across an opening and vanished again, but there were others behind, and for several minutes a row of half-seen men flitted by. Here and there one of them draped in white cotton carried a flintlock gun, but the rest were half-naked, and last of all a few plodded behind a lurching hammock. They went by without a sound but the confused patter of weary feet upon the quaggy trail, and left an impressive silence behind them when they plunged into the gloom again.

Then Ormsgill smiled grimly as he tapped the breech of his rifle.

"If homicide is ever justifiable it would have been to-night," he said. "One could hardly have missed that bulge in Domingo's hammock, and the longing to drive a bullet through it was almost too much for me."

Nares made no attempt to rebuke him. "That man," he said, "is permitted to be – one must suppose as part of a great purpose. The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they do their work thoroughly."

"It seems so," and Ormsgill laughed a little bitter laugh. "Anyway, the stones are wet with blood, and a good many of us have passed between them. One wonders now and then how long the downtrodden will endure that terrible grinding."

"It is for a time only. Day and night the cry goes up in many tongues."

"And the gods of the heathen cannot hear; and those of the white men may, it seems, be propitiated by masses in the cathedral and stained windows bought with cocoa and rubber dividends. Well, one must try to believe that Domingo's laborers enlisted for the purpose of being taught agriculture by the white men of their own free will. At least, that is the comfortable assurance usually furnished the civilized powers, and as they have their own little problems to grapple with they complacently shut one eye. I only wonder how many played-out niggers' throats Domingo has cut on the way. In the meanwhile, Lamartine is dying, and we may as well get on again."

He called to the hammock boys, who still seemed afraid, and in another five minutes the little party was once more floundering onwards through the silence of the steamy bush.

Darkness had closed down suddenly on the forest, but it was hotter than ever in the primitively furnished general room of Lamartine's house, where the lamp further raised the already almost insupportable temperature. There was also a deep, impressive silence in the bush that shut the rickety dwelling in, though now and then the sound of a big drop splashing upon a quivering leaf came in through the open window with startling distinctness. Lamartine, the French trader, was dead, and had been buried that afternoon, as was customary, within an hour or two after the breath has left his body. His career, like that of most men in his business, had not been a very exemplary one, but he had, at least, now and then shown that he possessed certain somewhat fantastic and elementary notions of ethics, which he was in the habit of alluding to as his code of honor. It was, as Father Tiebout, who had once or twice given him spiritual advice when he was very sick of fever, admitted, a rather indifferent one, but very few white men in that country had any code at all, and, as the good padre said, it was possible that too much would not be expected from any one who had lived in that forest long.

In any case, Lamartine had gone to answer for the deeds that he had done, and the three men who had buried him and had constituted themselves his executors sat about his little table with the perspiration dripping from them. There was Nares, gaunt and hollow-faced, weak from fever and worn with watching; Father Tiebout, the Belgian priest, little, and also haggard; and Ormsgill, the gray-eyed, brown-faced Englishman, who sat looking at them with set lips and furrowed forehead. Their creeds were widely different, but men acquire a certain wide toleration in the land of the shadow, where it is exceedingly difficult to believe in any thing beyond the omnipotence of evil.

It was, perhaps, characteristic that it was the priest who tore up certain papers Ormsgill had selected from the pile upon the table.

"I do not think that anything would be gained by allowing them to come under the notice of the authorities," he said. "I am not sure that they might not consider they invalidated the trifling bequest to the Mission, which with good management should enable us to rescue a few more of the heathen."

"A very few!" and Ormsgill smiled. "The market's stiff now Domingo has practically a monopoly as purveyor. Converts will be dearer. One understands that you buy most of yours."

Father Tiebout's eyes twinkled good-humoredly. "One must use the means available, and it is, at least, something if we can save their bodies. But to proceed, our companion will agree with me that repentance must be followed by restitution or reparation. In the case of the friend we have buried one must take the will for the deed, and the will was there. Restitution may also be efficacious if it is vicarious. As you know, it was the thought of the woman from the interior that most troubled Lamartine."

Ormsgill glanced at Nares, for both had heard some, at least, of the dying man's words on that subject, but for a time the American looked straight in front of him. Then he turned to Ormsgill.

"He seemed to expect you to make that restitution for him. Tell us what you know. Most of it will not be news to Father Tiebout, but I haven't his advantages."