At the Bend of the Trail
A brief story of Africa and a weird vegetable monstrosity that fought
two white explorers in the jungle
THEY stood at the bend of the trail, young Bruce Armstrong and white-haired Hubert Whaley, conversing while their black bearers raised their tent and built a cooking-fire. The sun was low on the African horizon and they whiled away the minutes before supper by conversation.
"As I was saying," Whaley told his young friend, "the natives invest every unusual object—rock, hill or what-not—with a supernatural personality and give it a wide berth. Look at this sharp curve in the trail. For years they've been dodging out to one side, just to avoid that root."
He pointed to a strange growth in the lush grass. It was long and crooked, lying in the shape of a letter S. If straight it might have been ten feet long, and it tapered from the size of a man's ankle at the point where it sprouted from the ground to a whiplash tip. It might have been the root of a tree, but there was no stem within yards to which it might attach.
"Rum thing. Looks as if a tree must be growing upside down," commented Armstrong. "Branches in the ground, root in the air, what? A chap could write books and books about uncatalogued plants in these parts. And you say the boys won't touch it?"
"Not one of them," replied Whaley. "Can't say that I blame them. It looks uncanny enough."
"What utter rot!" cried the younger man. "Come now, Whaley, do you mean to say you give a minute's serious thought to their superstitions?"
"I mean to say that Africa's full of strange beings and doings," was Whaley's sober response. "When you've been here as long as I have"
"I'm turning missionary this moment," cut in Armstrong. "I don't begrudge the blacks their ideas, but when a good friend and Englishman gets a touch of their religion I have to do something about it.—Hi, you Johnnies!" he cried to the bearers on the other side of the curved trail. "Tumble over here. Tell 'em, Whaley, I don't speak their lingo yet."
At Whaley's call a score of plum-colored men gathered, eyeing the whites with respectful interest.
"Look here, you chaps," said Armstrong. "What's all this about roots and spirits and such like? It's a lot of foolishness, you know.—Pass that on to 'em, Whaley, will you?"
When Whaley had translated, the headman replied that their tribal beliefs had been taught them by wise old men, who must have known the truth.
"Rot!" cried Armstrong when Whaley had rendered this into English. "Rot, I say, and I'll prove it. You're afraid to touch this root, are you?" He stepped close and set his boot-heel on the growth. "Well, then, suppose I show you that it's perfectly harmless."
A cry of alarm went up from the bearers—a cry echoed by Whaley.
"Look out, Armstrong! Look out, man, it's moving!"
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