Terence O'Rourke/Part 1/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X
HE TAKES COMMAND
In the northwest a drift of inky smoke trailed just above the horizon; otherwise there was no sign of man nor of life on the sea, save for the Eirene, fighting forward on her way thrilling with the vibration of the screws, panting hoarsely, ramming her keen nose into the sullen, strong swells.
On her decks men clustered like flies wherever a bit of shade was to be had; but men motionless, staring ahead with straining eyes, reluctant to lift a finger—crushed by the oppression of the heat.
Where the sun struck the pitch bubbled in the planks; iron stays and brass fittings were so hot that they blistered the hand that incautiously touched them. The man at the wheel dripped, bathed in perspiration, his thin shirt and light duck trousers sodden with moisture, his face a dull, reddish purple in color. By his side an officer languished, opening his mouth regretfully to deliver low-voiced orders. Everyone, man and master, was sunk deep in a daze of suffering caused by the heat.
Madame la Princesse kept to her stateroom; Mouchon, D'Ervy, the prince, and Chambret lounged listless in the main saloon, hugging the windows for a breath of air; in the chartroom le petit Lemercier hung over the table, his eyes glued in fascination upon a map of the adjacent littoral. The captain leaned over his shoulder, poising a pair of compasses to indicate a particular spot on the map.
"If your information is correct, monsieur," he said, "here is the oasis. Here should be the mouth of the Wadi Saglat—and here is the Eirene."
"So near?" breathed the visionary. "So near?"
"In two hours, monsieur, we make the coast."
"Yes—yes," responded Lemercier, devouring the map—his future empire!—with his gaze.
Some minutes passed, the captain waiting with his head to one side, his eyes narrowed, as a man that harkens for an expected sound. Presently he was rewarded; the ship seemed to spring to sudden life. There was a commotion upon the decks, the sounds of excited voices crying, "There! there!" to one another; and then the voice of the lookout:
"Land ho!"
Le petit Lemercier wheeled about with a strangled cry of expectation, and rushed from the chartroom, the captain following.
In the saloon, Chambret arose, startled for the moment. "Cape Juby at last, messieurs!" he cried.
Monsieur le Prince turned upon him a cold, malicious eye. "Monsieur is excitable," he observed, sneering offensively.
Chambret fought down his resentment of the personality; he had agreed with O'Rourke not to permit the prince to quarrel with him, as yet.
"Possibly," he admitted at last, placidly. "I go on deck to observe the fringe of the new empire," he added.
Prince Felix yawned and stretched himself.
"Monsieur is at liberty to go whither he lists," he remarked, with the same air of insolence.
"Without obtaining permission from Monsieur le Prince?" inquired Chambret respectfully. "For that, many thanks."
He met Prince Felix's gaze with one so steadfast that the roué-duelist drooped his lashes; whereupon Chambret, with a short laugh, went on deck.
As he emerged from the companion way he met O'Rourke, walking forward.
The Irishman was dressed for his coming part; there would be an immediate landing, as all guessed from a knowledge of the impatient nature of le petit Lemercier, and O'Rourke would be expected to head the army of occupation. He was, therefore, attired in khaki, with a pith helmet and puttees of the same dust-colored material; on his shoulders were the straps bearing the insignia of his rank, and by his side a light sword; a leathern holster hung at his belt, holding a revolver of respectable size.
Thus attired he looked uncommonly comfortable and even at peace with the heat; the light green lining of his helmet threw over his brow a pale, cool tint that added to the general effect, and aroused Chambret's humorously expressed jealousy.
"If monsieur will consent to become an officer of the army," retorted the Irishman, "he may wear one of these beautiful uniforms."
"It is gay and tempting," admitted Chambret. "Does your offer include the accouterments?" he added, glancing at the revolver.
"All," returned the Irishman imperturbably.
"I've a great mind to accept," said Chambret. "I desire to wear one of those pretty popguns that you affect, monsieur."
"It would adorn ye."
"And add immeasurably to my peace of mind."
O'Rourke raised his brows in inquiry. "Monsieur le Prince?" he asked, in a low tone, nodding significantly toward the companionway.
"More offensive than ever," said Chambret. "How you manage to endure his insinuative insults is more that I can comprehend in you, monsieur, whom I know for a man of spirit."
"Thank you; 'tis meself that's all of that," agreed O'Rourke readily. "But for the present I'm cold-bloodedly biding me time. 'Tis sure to come."
"And—"
"And from the moment Monsieur le Prince attempts any funny business ashore, Chambret, he will begin to lose prestige. In fact," he drawled, "I think I may state that he will be the most astonished princeling that ever journeyed to Africa."
"I do not comprehend—"
"Wait—wait, mon ami."
Laughing confidently, O'Rourke went forward, accompanied by Chambret.
Lemercier was hanging over the bows, the captain by his side; O'Rourke drew Chambret's attention to him.
"Drunk with imperial glory," he commented; "a sad sight!"
He entered the wheel house familiarly, and returned at once with a pair of binoculars. Chambret had already climbed to the bridge; O'Rourke joined him, adjusted the glasses, and began to sweep the nearing coast line with a painstaking attention.
Time and again he scanned its visible configuration with the glasses; at length, sighing as though with relief, he turned them over to Chambret. The latter, who had marked O'Rourke's intent scrutiny with wonder, focussed the binoculars to his own eyes eagerly, and imitated his companion's use of them. When he put them down, "There is nothing?" he said inquiringly.
"Nothing," affirmed O'Rourke, "save sand and heat and silence, so far as one can tell. Praises be to the saints if it is so in truth!" he added piously.
"What do you mean, monsieur? What did you fear to encounter in this uninhabitable desert?"
"Tawareks," answered O'Rourke briefly.
"Tawareks? What be they, monsieur—bird or beast, or—?"
"Devils," the Irishman indicated sententiously; "devils in human guise, me dear Chambret."
The Frenchman frowned, perplexed.
"I do not comprehend."
"Ye've never heard of the Tawareks, monsieur? 'The masked pirates of the desert,' as your press terms them? The natives that made ye more trouble in the Soudan—around about Timbuctu—than any others?"
Chambret shook his head doubtfully. "I remember hearing of the fighting thereabouts," he admitted; "but, believe me, monsieur, to me the name of one tribe of blacks means no more than that of another."
"Tawareks," O'Rourke objected, "are no niggers. They are the lords of the desert—inhabitants of the Sahara proper—a branch of the Berbers: perhaps the root-stock of the Berber family tree—for they're almost white. They infest the caravan routes; in a word, they're pirates, and rule the country with a rod of iron. Not a caravan gets safely through their territory without paying tribute in the shape of toll money to the Tawareks. They are—divvies incarnate, no less!"
"And you fear them here, monsieur?"
"Much. Why else should I have insisted on a force of forty fighting men, rather than the original ten which Monsieur le Prince suggested?"
Chambret pursed his lips and shrugged his shoulders.
"I will join your army, monsieur," he volunteered presently, "and wear one of your pretty uniforms—and the revolver."
"Ye will be welcome," said O'Rourke simply, again assuming the glasses. After a second reassuring inspection he nevertheless called Danny and issued to him orders concerning the arms and ammunition of the troopers.
The Eirene plowed on toward the coast; gradually it loomed before her bows until its outlines were easily to be discerned with the unaided eye—a long, low border of shelving beach that was tossed back from the sea in yellow sand hills, irregular, studded with clumps of stunted grass: hills that stretched away inland to the eastern horizon in a broken perspective of rounded forms, sweltering beneath the sky of brass and its unblinking sun, lonely, desolate and barren—a monstrous bald place upon the poll of the earth. Not a sign of life was there; naught but sand and silence and the sun. Its effect of solitude seemed overpowering. Not even a bird of prey hung poised in the saffron sky; for here was nought to prey upon.
Those of the ship's company who were to land—that is, all save the complement of the yacht—watched the scene unceasingly, and with increasing perturbation. Surely, they said one to another, it was inconceivable that man could win him a foothold in this place of barrenness. They turned their eyes to le petit Lemercier, some of the more outspoken grumbling, fomenting mutiny among their fellows. Was he to take them there, to pen them in the solitude of that land without shade or water? Did he dream of this?
Even Lemercier himself was disturbed; the rosy visions that had been his, faded. For an instant he was perilously near to disillusionment, near to turning back and abandoning his project.
This land loomed so different from what he had been led to expect, from the empire in embryo his wishful imagination had pictured to him. Had he been deceived—or had he been merely self-deceived? Should he persist? Would his plans bear fruit?
Thus he vacillated; and would probably have acknowledged defeat ere giving battle with this wilderness but for Monsieur le Prince de Grandlieu.
Instinctively, the latter had dreaded the effect of Lemercier's first sight of the land he had come to conquer. Now he was ever at his dupe's elbow, an evil genius whispering encouragement in his ear.
"Irrigation! Ah, but wait, mon ami, and observe what irrigation shall accomplish here! The oasis? We have been misled; our information was erroneous. Beyond doubt it exists, either here or hereabouts. The makers of maps are prone to mistakes. Let us go on, down the coast—" and so forth.
Lemercier's mood changed under the stimulus of his men- tor's encouraging words. His brow cleared; he straightened his slight form, throwing back his shoulders proudly, frowning at the desert.
He had come to fight it. So—he would fight it! And he would conquer it,—conquer or die in the attempt.
By his order, for hours the Eirene shaped her course southwards, down the coast. By degrees almost imperceptible, the latter changed in aspect; the dunes became higher, more solid appearing to the eye, the lay of the country more rough and rugged.
At about four o'clock in the afternoon the yacht rounded a point, to come suddenly upon what seemed to be, at first glance, a broad bay and a natural harbor.
The captain of the vessel was the first to discover its true nature; after a hasty inspection of the chart, he announced:
"The mouth of the Wadi Saglat."
"A river!" cried Lemercier triumphantly.
"A dead river," amended the captain; "its mouth forms an estuary of a kind. There should be anchorage here."
"But the oasis?"
At this moment Prince Felix entered the chartroom.
"The lookout," he said, "reports a large clump of trees a considerable distance inland."
Lemercier danced with excitement, shrilling out orders; Monsieur le Prince watched him with an amusement tempered with disdain—which, however, he took care to hide.
When the ship was brought to a stop within the mouth of the Wadi, the anchor was dropped and the surmise of the captain proved correct; a good holding was there.
Boats were lowered, and the troops piled into them, Monsieur le petit Lemercier in the foremost, standing at the prow with the pose of the heroic leader of an invading army, a pith helmet in his hand, his hair, the color of tow, tossed back in strings from his narrow forehead, his head high, eyes fixed, lips mechanically smiling—an object, in short, of derision to the more light-minded members of his expedition, of pity to all.
O'Rourke followed, in the second boat, with a portion of his command. He was the second to step ashore, and at that opportunely to catch the arm of the impetuous Lemercier and save him a fall in the sands.
For this Frenchman who would be emperor, in his overwhelming desire to set foot upon the lands he designed for empire, was over-hasty in jumping ashore. He slipped, stumbled, plunged forward with wildly grasping hands.
"An omen!" he whimpered, turning toward O'Rourke, when by his aid he had regained balance. His countenance had lost its proud smile; he seemed a very child to O'Rourke—a child frightened by the darkness or by an old woman's tale. His lip trembled, his eyes were filled with dread as with tears; he quivered with a sort of terror.
"An omen!" he repeated piteously. "An inauspicious omen!"
"Nonsense!" derided O'Rourke, moved by sudden compassion for the child. "Monsieur stumbled, it is true: the way to empire is not smooth. But he did not fall; he stands firmly on his feet. … I would ask monsieur not to forget by whose hand," he added, with meaning, yet laughing.
Lemercier brightened.
"I shall not forget, mon ami," he promised.
"The memory of monarchs is short," O'Rourke reminded himself, lest the promise should make him over-sanguine of the future.
Other boats followed, discharging their occupants, and returned to the Eirene for more; within a short time the toiling sailors at the oars had landed the expedition in its entirety.
So far there had been no demonstration.
Now Lemercier stood surrounded by his associates and friends—by no means to be confused. On the one hand, were Madame la Princesse—charming, beautiful, and distinguished, and utterly out of place in her Parisian summer gown—with O'Rourke and Chambret; on the other, Prince Felix, D'Ervy, Mouchon; and behind them all, in double rank, the forty troops commanded by Danny—all now neat and soldierly of appearance in khaki uniforms, all armed with Mausers, bayonets, revolvers.
Mouchon, bearing the jacketed standard of the new empire, offered it to Lemercier, judging that the time was ripe. Le petit Lemercier, however, was of a different mind.
"Not here," he decided: "not upon the seashore; I am not inclined to imitate King Canute. Let us go inland—to the oasis."
And the procession moved off, plodding desperately in the- hollows of the dunes, guided by men who climbed the hills to report the way.
But it seemed that it was farther than their leader had calculated; he himself grew weary of the tiresome journey, and when O'Rourke moved up to his side, and suggested that it would be impossible to reach the oasis before dark, he halted immediately.
"Mouchon!" he called. "Give me the flag. At least it shall be unfurled in the sun's rays."
They stood in the center of a natural depression, something like a square half mile in area, almost level, bounded by silent and forbidding hills of sand.
Again the little company arranged itself in anticipation of the ceremony. Lemercier took the standard and unwrapped its waterproof covering. He stepped to the fore of the assemblage, raising his shrill, nasal voice.
"In the name of the progress of God's civilization," he announced, "I, Leopold, do declare this country mine by the right of discovery; and I name it the Empire of the Sahara!"
There was a moment's silence ; Leopold had been schooled to his part. He sank upon one knee and bowed his head, appearing to invite the blessing of the Deity upon his empire. Then, abruptly, as though moved by springs, he leapt to his feet and unfurled the standard.
It fluttered, in the breeze created by his own rapid motions, from side to side—a purple flag, fringed with gold, with three golden bees embroidered upon it in a triangular arrangement, in the center of which was the Emperor's initial—"L." The last crimson rays of the dying sun lit it up brightly.
From the group about the emperor a feeble cheer arose; then Danny rose to the occasion.
"Cheer, ye tarriers!" he growled in an undertone, raising his sword aloft and waving it. "Yelp, ye scuts, as though ye believed in him yerselves! Prisint ar-rms!" he roared. "Now, byes, wan, two, three—"
The soldiery, grinning, filled the little valley with their shouts.
"Vive I'Empereur!"
"Again!"
"Vive I'Empereur!"
"Wance again, la-ads! Now—"
For a third time they gave le petit Lemercier a crashing cheer; it thundered from their throats and—was lost. That silence which lay upon the hills, lifeless, dull, empty even of echoes, fell upon and crushed the uproar to nothingness.
But, for all that, the noise, the spirit of the words cried in his name, was meat and drink to le petit Lemercier, and a joy to the soul of him. He raised his head, regally, smiling, and began a speech.
"Messieurs!" he cried pompously. "I—" His voice died to a whisper in his throat; his flush paled; he collapsed suddenly from the statue of an emperor to that of a frightened child. "General O'Rourke—" he faltered, with a frightened gesture.
The eyes of the company followed the direction of his gaze.
Abruptly, noiselessly, the summits of the surrounding hills had become peopled; out of the wilderness its men had sprung to look upon this man who dared declare himself their ruler.
O'Rourke cast his eyes about the whole circumference of the little valley; on every hilltop he saw men, seated silently upon the back of camels, watching, it seemed, sardonically the trumpery show beneath them: men of giant figures and of lordly bearing, clothed for the most part in flowing white burnooses, with headdresses of white. Each bore upon his hip, as a cavalryman carries his carbine, a long rifle; and each was masked with black below his eyes.
For a full minute the tableau held: the forlorn little company in the valley, motionless with astonishment, transfixed with a chill of fear; the spectators upon the dunes, gazing grimly down—quiet and sinister, bulking against the darkling sky like some portentous army of ghosts.
O'Rourke was the first to recover; he realized that the time was brief for that which must be accomplished. Already the sun was down; there would be a few fleeting moments of twilight, then the sudden, swooping desert night.
"Tawareks!" he shouted. "The masked Tawareks! Men, form a square! Danny, run back and see if the way to the boats be clear; if not, we'll have to fight through them!" He turned to his princess. "Madame," he said gently, "there will be but one place for ye—the center of the square. We fight for our lives now, and against odds!"
And he drew his breath sharply, mindful of the two long miles that lay between them and the boats.