For about two miles Dick followed the course of the rivulet, in the hope that it would emerge into a more important stream, which would convey them without much difficulty or danger direct to the sea.
Towards noon about three miles had been accomplished, and a halt was made for rest. Neither Negoro nor Harris had been seen, nor had Dingo reappeared. The encampment for the midday refreshment was made under the shelter of a clump of bamboos, which effectually concealed them all. Few words were spoken during the meal. Mrs. Weldon could eat nothing; she had again taken her little boy into her arms, and seemed wholly absorbed in watching him. Again and again Dick begged her to take some nourishment, urging upon her the necessity of keeping up her strength.
“We shall not be long in finding a good current to carry us to the coast,” said the lad brightly.
Mrs. Weldon raised her eyes to his animated features. With so sanguine and resolute a leader, with such devoted servants as the five negroes in attendance, she felt that she ought not utterly to despair. Was she not, after all, on friendly soil? what great harm could Harris perpetrate against her or her belongings? She would hope still, hope for the best.
Rejoiced as he was to see something of its former brightness return to her countenance, Dick nevertheless had scarcely courage steadily to return her searching gaze. Had she known the whole truth, he knew that her heart must fail her utterly.
IV
Rough Travelling
Just at this moment Jack woke up and put his arms round his mother’s neck. His eyes were brighter, and there was manifestly no return of fever.
“You are better, darling!” said Mrs. Weldon, pressing him tenderly to her.
“Yes, mamma, I am better; but I am very thirsty.”
Some cold water was soon procured, which the child drank eagerly, and then began to look about him. His first inquiry was for his old friends, Dick and Hercules, both of whom approached at his summons and greeted him affectionately.
“Where is the horse?” was the next question.
“Gone away, Master Jack; I am your horse now,” said Hercules.
“But you have no bridle for me to hold,” said Jack, looking rather disappointed.
“You may put a bit in my mouth if you like, master Jack,” replied Hercules, extending his jaws, “and then you may pull as hard as you please.”
“O, I shall not pull very hard,” said Jack; “but haven’t we nearly come to Mr. Harris’s farm?”
Mrs. Weldon assured the child that they should soon be where they wanted to be, and Dick, finding that the conversation was approaching dangerous ground, proposed that the journey should be now resumed. Mrs. Weldon assented; the encampment was forthwith broken up and the march continued as before.
In order not to lose sight of the watercourse, it was necessary to cut a way right through the underwood: progress was consequently very slow; and a little over a mile was all that was accomplished in about three hours. Footpaths had evidently once existed, but they had all become what the natives term “dead,” that is, they had become entirely overgrown with brushwood and brambles. The negroes worked away with a will; Hercules, in particular, who temporarily resigned his charge to Nan, wielded his axe with marvellous effect, all the time giving vent to stentorian groans and grunts, and succeeded in opening the woods before him as if they were being consumed by a devouring fire.
Fortunately this heavy labour was not of very long duration.
After about a mile, an opening of moderate width, converging towards the stream and following its bank, was discovered in the underwood. It was a passage formed by elephants, which apparently by hundreds must be in the habit of traversing this part of the forest. The spongy soil, soaked by the downpour of the rainy season, was everywhere indented with the enormous impressions of their feet.
But it soon became evident that elephants were not the only living creatures that had used this track. Human bones gnawed by beasts of prey, whole human skeletons, still wearing the iron fetters of slavery, everywhere strewed the ground. It was a scene only too common in Central Africa, where like cattle driven to the slaughter, poor miserable men are dragged in caravans for hundreds of weary miles, to perish on the road in countless numbers beneath the trader’s lash, to succumb to the mingled horrors of fatigue, privation, and disease, or, if provisions fail, to be butchered, without pity or remorse, by sword and gun.
That slave-caravans had passed that way was too obvious to permit a doubt. For at least a mile, at almost every step Dick came in contact with the scattered bones; while ever and again huge goat suckers, disturbed by the approach of the travellers, rose with flapping wings, and circled round their heads.
The youth’s heart sank with secret dismay lest Mrs. Weldon should divine the meaning of this ghastly scene, and appeal to him for explanation, but fortunately she had again insisted on carrying her little patient, and although the child was fast asleep, he absorbed her whole attention. Nan was by her side, almost equally engrossed. Old Tom alone was fully alive to the significance of his surroundings, and with downcast eyes he mournfully pursued his march. Full of amazement, the other negroes looked right and left upon what might appear to them as the upheaval of some vast cemetery, but they uttered no word of inquiry or surprise.
Meantime the bed of the stream had increased both in breadth and depth, and the rivulet had in a degree lost its character of a rushing torrent. This was a change which Dick Sands observed hopefully, interpreting it as an indication that it
