The Great Quest Part 28

"No, not that, Molly! 'T is not I am scairt of any man that walks the green earth, Molly, but spirits is different."

"Spirits!" Matterson was softly laughing. "I didn't think, O'Hara, _you'd_ be one to turn black."

"Laugh, curse you!" O'Hara cried hotly. "If 'twas you had seen a glimmer of the things I've seen with my own two eyes; if 't was you had seen a man die because he went against taboo; if 't was you had seen a witch doctor bring the yammering spirit back unwilling to a cold body; if 't was you had seen a man three weeks dead get up and dance; if 't was you had seen a strong man fall down without the breath of life in him at all, and all for nothing else but a spell was on him, maybe then you'd believe me. I swear by the blessed saints in heaven, it's throwing our lives away to go up river now; and all I've got to say for Bull is, G.o.d help him!"

The others were looking at O'Hara curiously. The lantern light on their faces brought out every scar and wrinkle and showed that strong pa.s.sions were contending within each of them.

"It ain't spirits that worries me," said Gleazen, at last, "and it ain't n.i.g.g.e.rs. It's men." He now seemed quite to shake off the spell of the strange voice. "What say, Seth?" He turned to my uncle.

To my surprise, Seth Upham rose manfully to the occasion. "Spirits?"

he cried. "Nonsense!"

O'Hara uneasily s.h.i.+fted his feet. "Ah, say what you like, men," he very earnestly replied, "say what you like against spirits and greegrees and jujus and all the rest. I'll never be one to say there's nothing in them, nor would you, if you'd seen all that I have seen. And I'll be telling you this, men: that voice we heard then was speaking the thoughts of ten thousand fighting n.i.g.g.e.rs up and down this river."

"Pfaw!" said Gleazen, stretching his arms. "n.i.g.g.e.rs won't fight."

"That from you, Neil!"

I never learned just what lay behind O'Hara's simple thrust, but there was no doubt that it struck a weak link in Gleazen's armor, for he flushed so deeply that we could see it by lantern light.

"Well, now," said he, with a conciliatory inflection, "of course I meant it in moderation."

All this time Arnold and Gideon North and I stood by and looked and listened.

Now, with a glance at us, Matterson said shortly, "Come, come!

Enough of that. All hands lay to and load the boat."

"I've warned ye," said O'Hara.

"At midnight," said Matterson, "_we'll_ go _up_ the river, and Gideon North'll take the brig _down_ the river. Come morning there'll be no stick nor timber of us here. They'll bother no more about us then."

"Ye'll never fool 'em," said O'Hara.

Matterson turned his back on him, and the work went forward, and for an hour there was only the low murmur of voices. The boat, now ready for the journey, rode at the end of her painter, where the current made long ripples, which converged at her bow. Here and there, lights shone in the clearing and set my imagination and my memory hard at work, but elsewhere the impenetrable blackness of a cloudy night blanketed the whole world. And meanwhile the others were holding council in the cabin.

"I think," Arnold Lamont said, "that Matterson and Gleazen underestimate the ingenuity and resources of that black yelling devil."

"So they do," said Abe Guptil. "So they do, and I'd be glad enough to be back home, I tell you."

What would I not have given to be sleeping once more in Abe's low-studded house beside our wholesome northern sea!

Now the others came from the cabin. They walked eagerly. Their very whispers were full of excitement. Even Uncle Seth seemed to have got from somewhere a new confidence and a new hope, so smartly did he step about and so sharply did he speak; and the faint odor of brandy that came with them explained much.

We climbed down into the loaded boat and settled ourselves on the thwarts, where Abe Guptil and I took oars.

"It's turn and turn about at the rowing," Matterson announced.

"We've a long way to go and a current dead against us."

I saw Gideon North looking down at us anxiously, and waved my hand.

Then someone cast off, and we pulled out into midstream and up above the brig, where we held our place and watched and waited.

Soon we heard orders on board the brig. Sails fell from the gaskets and shook free. The men began to heave at the windla.s.s. The brig first came up to the anchors, then, with anchors aweigh, she half turned in the current.

Now orders followed in quick succession. We could hear them rigging the fish tackle and catching the hooks on the flukes of the anchors.

Blocks rattled, braces creaked, the yards swung from side to side according to the word of command. The sails filled with the light breeze, and coming slowly about, the Adventure gathered steerage-way and went down the river as if she were some gigantic water bird lazily swimming between the mangroves. We watched her go and knew that we seven were now irrevocably left to fend for ourselves.

When Gleazen whispered to us to give way, we bent to the oars with a will. For better or for worse, we had embarked on the final stage of our great quest.

The lights in the clearing fell astern. The tall trees seemed to close in above us. Alone in the wilderness, we turned the bow of our boat toward the heart of Africa.

That we had set forth in complete secrecy on our voyage up river we were absolutely confident. What eyes were keen enough to tell at a distance that the brig had left a boat behind her when she sailed?

Gleazen now laughed derisively at O'Hara. "You'd have had us sail away, would you? And wait a month? Or a year, maybe, or maybe two.

Ha, ha!"

"Don't you laugh at me, Neil," O'Hara replied. "We're not yet out o'

the woods."

At the man's solemn manner Gleazen laughed again, louder than before.

As if to reprove his rashness, as if to bear out every word O'Hara had said, at that very moment the uncanny yell we had heard before rose the second time, far off in the swamp. Three times we heard the yell, then we heard the voice, faint and far away, "White man, I come 'peak. White man boat him sink. White man him go Dead Land."

Three times more the wordless wailing yell drifted to us out of the darkness; then we heard a great mult.i.tude of men wildly and savagely laughing.

Never again did Cornelius Gleazen scoff at O'Hara. His face now, I verily believe, was grayer than O'Hara's. He turned about and stared downstream as if he could see beyond the black wall of mangroves.

"Now what'll we do?" he gasped, with a choking, profane e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n.

"Did you hear that?"

Had we heard it! There was not one of us whom it had not chilled to the heart. Our own smallness under those vast trees, our few resources,--we had only the goods that were piled in the boat,--our unfathomable loneliness, combined to make us feel utterly without help or strength. But it was now too late to return. So we bent to our oars and rowed on, and on, and on, against the current of the great river.

The only help that remained to us lay in our own right hands and in the mercy of divine Providence. Would Providence, I wondered, help such men as Gleazen and Matterson and O'Hara?

Nor was that the only doubt that beset us. Although the three accepted us, and in actual fact trusted us, they made no attempt to conceal their enmity; and I very well knew that, besides danger from without our little band, Arnold, Abe, and I must guard against treachery from within it.

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V

THE HOUSE ON THE HILL

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