In Desert and Wilderness/Part 2/Chapter 3
III
During the following three days they rode continuously in the ravine and always upwards. The days were as a rule scorching, the nights alternately cool or sultry; the rainy season was approaching. From beyond the horizon here and there emerged clouds, white as milk but deep and heavy. At the sides could already be seen stripes of rain and distant rainbows. Towards the morning of the third day one of these clouds burst above their heads like a barrel from which the hoops had flown off and sprinkled them with a warm and copious rain which fortunately was of brief duration. Afterwards the weather became fine and they could ride farther. Guinea-fowls again appeared in such numbers that Stas shot at them without dismounting from his horse, and in this manner got five, which more than sufficed for one meal, even counting Saba. Travel in the refreshed air was not burdensome, and the abundance of game and water removed fears of hunger and thirst. On the whole everything passed more easily than they had anticipated. So then good humor did not desert Stas, and, riding beside the little girl, he chattered merrily with her and at times even joked.
"Do you know, Nell," he said, when for a while he stopped the horses under a great bread-fruit tree from which Kali and Mea cut off fruit resembling huge melons, "at times it seems to me that I am a knight-errant."
"And what is a knight-errant?" asked Nell, turning her pretty head towards him.
"Long, long ago in the mediæval days there were knights who rode over the world, looking for adventure. They fought with giants and dragons, and do you know that each one had his lady, whom he protected and defended?"
"And am I such a lady?"
Stas pondered for a while, after which he replied:
"No, you are too small. All those others were grown up."
And it never occurred to him that probably no knight-errant had ever performed as much for his lady as he had done for his little sister. Plainly it appeared to him that whatever he had done was done as a matter of course.
But Nell felt aggrieved at his words; so with a pout she said:
"And you once said in the desert that I acted like a person of thirteen. Aha!"
"Well, that was once. But you are eight."
"Then after ten years I shall be eighteen."
"A great thing! And I shall be twenty-four! At such age a man does not think of any ladies for he has something else to do; that is self-evident."
"And what will you do?"
"I shall be an engineer or a sailor or, if there is a war in Poland, I shall go to fight, just as my father did."
While she asked uneasily:
"But you will return to Port Said?"
"We both must return there first."
"To papa!" the little girl replied.
And her eyes were dimmed with sorrow and longing. Fortunately there flew at that moment a small flock of wonderfully fine parrots, gray, with rosy heads, and a rosy lining under their wings. The children at once forgot about their previous conversation and began to follow the flight with their eyes.
The little flock circled about a group of euphorbias and lighted upon sycamores, growing at some distance, amidst the branches of which resounded voices similar to a wordy conference or a quarrel.
"Those are parrots which are very easily taught to talk," Stas said. "When we stop at a place for a length of time, I will try to catch one for you."
"Oh, Stas, thank you!" answered Nell gleefully. "I will call it Daisy."
In the meantime Mea and Kali, having cut off fruit from the bread-fruit tree, loaded the horses with it, and the little caravan proceeded. In the afternoon it began to cloud and at times brief showers occurred, filling the crevices and the depressions in the earth. Kali predicted a great downpour, so it occurred to Stas that the ravine, which was becoming narrower and narrower, would not be a safe shelter for the night, for it could change into a torrent. For this reason he determined to pass the night above, and this decision delighted Nell, particularly when Kali, who was sent to reconnoitre, returned and announced that not far away was a small grove composed of various trees, and in it many monkeys, not as ugly as the baboons which up to that time they had met.
Chancing thereafter upon a place at which the rocky walls were low and sloped gradually, he led the horses out, and before it grew dark they built a barricade for the night. Nell's tent stood on a high and dry spot close to a big white-ant hillock, which barred the access from one side and for that reason lessened the labor of building the zareba.
Near-by stood a large tree with widely spread boughs which, covered by dense foliage, furnished shelter against rain. In front of the zareba grew single clumps of trees and further a thick forest entangled with climbing plants, beyond which loftily shot out crowns of strange palm trees resembling gigantic fans or outspread peacock tails.
Stas learned from Kali that before the second rainy season, that is, in autumn, it was dangerous to pass the night under these palm trees, for the huge-fruit, at that time ripe, breaks off unexpectedly and falls from a considerable distance with such force that it can kill a person or even a horse. At present, however, the fruit was in bud, and in the distance before the sun set there could be seen, under the crowns, agile little monkeys, which, leaping gaily, chased each other.
Stas, with Kali, prepared a great supply of wood, sufficient for the whole night, and, as at times strong blasts of hot air broke out, they reinforced the zareba with pickets which the young negro whittled with Gebhr's sword and stuck in the ground. This precaution was not at all superfluous, as a powerful whirlwind could scatter the thorny boughs with which the zareba was constructed and facilitate an attack by beasts of prey.
However, immediately after sunset the wind ceased, and instead, the air became sultry and heavy. Through the rifts in the clouds the stars glittered here and there, but afterwards the night became so utterly dark that one could not see a step ahead. The little wanderers grouped about the fire, while their ears were assailed by the loud cries and shrieks of monkeys who in the adjacent forest created a veritable bedlam. This was accompanied by the whining of jackals and by various other voices in which could be recognized uneasiness and fright before something which under the cover of darkness threatened every living being in the wilderness.
Suddenly the voices subsided for in the dusky depths resounded the groans of a lion. The horses, which were pastured at some distance on the young jungle, began to approach the fire, starting up suddenly on their fettered fore legs, while the hair on Saba, who usually was so brave, bristled, and with tail curled under him, he nestled close to the people, evidently seeking their protection.
The groaning again resounded, as though it came from under the ground; deep, heavy, strained, as if the beast with difficulty drew it from its powerful lungs. It proceeded lowly over the ground, alternately increased and subsided, passing at times into a hollow, prodigiously mournful moan.
"Kali, throw fuel into the fire," commanded Stas.
The negro threw upon the camp-fire an armful of boughs so hastily that at first whole sheaves of sparks burst out, after which a high flame shot up.
"Stas, the lion will not attack us, will he?" whispered Nell, pulling the boy by the sleeve.
"No, he will not attack us. See how high the zareba is."
And speaking thus, he actually believed that danger did not threaten them, but he was alarmed about the horses, which pressed more and more closely to the fence and might trample it down.
In the meantime the groans changed into the protracted, thunderous roar by which all living creatures are struck with terror, and the nerves of people, who do not know what fear is, shake, just as the window-panes rattle from distant cannonading.
Stas cast a fleeting glance at Nell, and seeing her quivering chin and moist eyes, said:
"Do not fear; don't cry."
And she answered as if with difficulty:
"I do not want to cry—only my eyes perspire—oh!"
The last ejaculation burst from her lips because at that moment from the direction of the forest thundered a second roar even stronger than the first for it was nearer. The horses began to push upon the zareba and were it not for the long and hard-as-steel thorns of the acacia branches, they would have demolished it. Saba growled and at the same time trembled like a leaf, while Kali began to repeat with a broken voice:
"Master, two! two! two!"
And the lions, aware of each other's presence, did not cease roaring, and the horrible concert continued in the darkness incessantly, for when one beast became silent the other began again. Stas soon could not distinguish from where the sounds came, as the echoes repeated them in the ravine; rock sent them back to rock, they ascended and descended, filling the forest and the jungle, and the entire darkness with thunder and fear.
To the boy one thing seemed certain, and that was that they approached nearer and nearer. Kali perceived likewise that the lions ran about the encampment making a smaller circle each moment, and that, prevented from making an attack only by the glare of the flames, they were expressing their dissatisfaction and fear by their roar.
Evidently, however, he thought that danger threatened only the horses, as, spreading his fingers, he said:
"The lions will kill one, two, not all! not all!"
"Throw wood into the fire," repeated Stas.
A livelier flame burst forth; the roars suddenly ceased. But Kali, raising his head and gazing upwards, began to listen.
"What is it?" Stas asked.
"Rain," replied the negro.
Stas in turn listened. The branches of the tree mantled the tent and the whole zareba so that not a drop of rain fell upon the ground, but above could be heard the rustle of leaves. As the sultry air was not stirred by the slightest breeze, it was easy to surmise that it was the rain which began to murmur in the jungle.
The rustle increased with each moment and after a time the children saw drops flowing from the leaves, similar in the luster of the fire to ruddy pearls. As Kali had forecast, a downpour began. The rustle changed into a roar. Ever-increasing drops fell, and finally through the dense foliage whole streams of water began to penetrate.
The camp-fire darkened. In vain Kali threw whole armfuls into it. On the surface the wet boughs smoked only, and below, the burning wood began to hiss and the flame, however much it was replenished, began to be extinguished.
"When the downpour quenches the fire, the zareba will defend us," Stas said to pacify Nell.
After which he conducted the little girl into the tent and wrapped her in plaids, but he himself went out as quickly as possible as the briefly interrupted roars had broken out again. This time they sounded considerably nearer and as if they were gleeful.
The downpour intensified with each moment. The rain pattered on the hard leaves and splashed. If the camp-fire had not been under the shelter of the boughs, it would have been quenched at once, but as it was there hovered over it mainly smoke, amid which narrow, blue little flames glittered. Kali gave up the task and did not add any more deadwood. Instead he flung a rope around the tree and with its aid climbed higher and higher on the trunk.
"What are you doing?" Stas asked.
"Kali climbs the tree."
"What for?" shouted the boy, indignant at the negro's selfishness.
Bright, dreadful flashes of lightning rent the darkness and Kali's reply was drowned by a peal of thunder which shook heaven and the wilderness. Simultaneously a whirlwind broke out, tugged the boughs of the tree, swept away in the twinkling of an eye the camp-fire, seized the embers, still burning under the ashes, and carried them with sheaves of sparks into the jungle.
Impenetrable darkness temporarily encompassed the camp. A terrible tropical storm raged on earth and in the sky. Thunder followed thunder, lightning, lightning. The gory zigzags of thunderbolts rent the sky, black as a pall. On the neighboring rocks appeared strange blue balls, which sometimes rolled along the ravine and then burst with a blinding light and broke out with a peal so terrible that it seemed as if the rocks would be reduced to powder from the shock.
Afterwards darkness again followed.
Stas became alarmed about Nell and went groping in the darkness to the tent. The tent, protected by the white-ant hillock and the giant tree-trunk, stood yet, but the first strong buffet of the whirlwind might pull out the ropes and carry it the Lord knows where. And the whirlwind subsided, then broke out again with a fury, carrying waves of rain, and clouds of leaves, and branches broken off in the adjacent forest. Stas was beset with despair. He did not know whether to leave Nell in the tent or lead her out of it. In the first case she might get entangled in the ropes and be seized with the linen folds, and in the other she would get a thorough drenching and also would be carried away, as Stas, though beyond comparison stronger, with the greatest difficulty could keep on his feet.
The problem was solved by the whirlwind which a moment later carried away the top of the tent. The linen walls now did not afford any shelter. Nothing else remained to do but to wait in the darkness in which the lions lurked, until the storm passed away.
Stas conjectured that probably the lions had sought shelter from the tempest in the neighboring forest, but he was certain that after the storm they would return. The danger of the situation increased because the wind had totally swept away the zareba.
Everything was threatened with destruction. The rifle could not avail for anything, nor could his energy. In the presence of the storm, thunderbolts, hurricane, rain, darkness, and the lions, which might be concealed but a few paces away, he felt disarmed and helpless. The linen walls tugged by the wind splashed them with water from all sides, so, enclosing Nell in his arms, he led her from the tent; after which both nestled close to the trunk of the tree, awaiting death or divine mercy.
At this moment, between one blow of the wind and another, Kali's voice reached them, barely audible amidst the splashing of the rain.
"Great master! Up the tree! up the tree!"
And simultaneously the end of a wet rope, lowered from above, touched the boy's shoulder.
"Tie the 'bibi,' and Kali will pull her up!" the negro continued to shout.
Stas did not hesitate a moment. Wrapping Nell in a saddle-cloth in order that the rope should not cut her body, he tied a girdle around her; after which he lifted her and shouted:
"Pull!"
The first boughs of the tree were quite low so Nell's aerial journey was brief. Kali soon seized her with his powerful arms and placed her between the trunk and a giant bough, where there was sufficient room for half a dozen of such diminutive beings. No wind could blow her away from there and in addition, even although water flowed all over the tree, the trunk, about fifteen feet thick, shielded her at least from new waves of rain borne obliquely by the wind.
Having attended to the safety of the little "bibi," the negro again lowered the rope for Stas, but he, like a captain who is the last to leave a sinking ship, ordered Mea to go ahead of him.
Kali did not at all need to pull her as in a moment she climbed the rope with skill and agility as if she were the full sister of a chimpanzee. For Stas it was considerably more difficult, but he was too well-trained an athlete not to overcome the weight of his own body together with the rifle and a score of cartridges with which he filled his pockets.
In this manner all four found themselves in the tree. Stas was so accustomed to think of Nell in every situation that now he was occupied, above all, in ascertaining whether she was not in danger of falling, whether she had sufficient room and whether she could lie down comfortably. Satisfied in this respect, he began to wrack his brains as to how to protect her from the rain. But for this there was no help. It would have been easy to construct during the daytime some kind of roof over her head, but now they were enveloped in such darkness that they could not see each other at all. If the storm at last passed away and if they succeeded in starting the fire again, they might dry Nell's dress! Stas, with despair, thought that the little girl, soaked to the skin, would undoubtedly on the following day suffer from the first attack of fever.
He feared that towards the morning, after the storm, it would be as cool as it was on the previous night. Thus far the wind was rather warm and the rain as though heated. Stas was surprised at its persistence as he knew that the more strongly a storm raged the shorter was its duration.
After a long time the thunder abated and the buffets of the wind weakened, but the rain continued to fall, less copious, indeed, than before, but so heavy and thick that the leaves did not afford any protection against it. From below came the murmur of water as if the whole jungle were transformed into a lake. Stas thought that in the ravine certain death would have awaited them. Immense sorrow possessed him at the thought of what might have become of Saba, and he did not dare to speak of him to Nell. He, nevertheless, had a slight hope that the intelligent dog would find a safe haven among the rocks projecting above the ravine. There was not, however, a possibility of going to him with any aid.
They sat, therefore, one beside the other amid the expanding boughs, drenched and waiting for the day. After the lapse of a few more hours the air began to cool and the rain finally ceased. The water too flowed down the slope to a lower place as they could not hear a splash or a murmur. Stas had observed on the previous days that Kali understood how to stir up a fire with wet twigs, so it occurred to him to order the negro to descend and try whether he would not succeed this time. But at the moment in which he turned to him something happened which froze the blood in the veins of all four.
The deep silence of the night was rent suddenly by the squeaking of horses, horrible, shrill, full of pain, fears, and mortal dismay. Some mischief was afoot in the darkness; there resounded short rattlings in the throat, afterwards hollow groans, a snorting, a second squeak yet more penetrating, after which all was quiet.
"Lions, great Master! Lions killing horses!" whispered Kali.
There was something so horrible in this night attack, in the superior force of the monsters, and in the sudden slaughter of the defenseless animals that Stas for a time was struck with consternation, and forgot about the rifle. What, after all, would it have availed him to shoot in such darkness? Unless for this, that those midnight assassins, if the flash and report should frighten them, would abandon the horses already killed, and start after those which were scared away and had run from the camp as far as their fettered legs would permit them.
Stas' flesh began to creep at the thought of what would have happened if they had remained below. Nell, nestling close to him, shook as if she already were suffering the first attack of fever, but the tree at least protected them from an attack of lions. Kali plainly had saved their lives.
It was, however, a horrible night—the most horrible in the entire journey.
They sat like drenched birds on a twig, listening to what was happening below. And there for some time a deep silence continued, but soon came a peculiar sound as though of lapping, smacking of torn-off pieces of flesh, together with the horses' heavy breathing and the groans of the monsters.
The odor of the raw meat and blood reached up to the tree, as the lions feasted not farther than twenty paces from the zareba.
And they feasted so long that in the end anger seized Stas. He seized the rifle and fired in the direction of the sounds.
But he was answered only by a broken, irritated roar, after which resounded the cracking of bones, rattling in powerful jaws. In the depths glared the blue and red eyes of hyenas and jackals waiting for their turn.
And thus the long hours of the night passed away.