Part 4

All being at last ready, Mr. Halliday set out on his second journey, which took him nearly four times as long as the first, owing partly to a certain turbulence among the Swahili porters, and partly to the difficulty of driving the animals. Apart from their natural tendency to lag and to stray, it was a difficult and sometimes a perilous operation to get them across the many streams; fortunately it was the height of the dry season, and the depth of water insignificant. Several sheep were drowned, some strayed and could not be recovered; one or two died of over-marching. The donkeys also gave a good deal of trouble, having to be unloaded at every stream, lugged across, and then loaded up again. It was a long and tiresome business each night to construct a boma of sufficient circuit to enclose the whole of the safari, and in spite of this thorny fence, and watchfires kept constantly alight, a lion on one occasion broke in at dead of night, snapped up a sheep, and made off with it before the alarm could be given.

Mr. Halliday found the porters even more troublesome than the animals. It turned out that one of the Swahilis was an old rival of Coja ben Selim. He was a big man named Juma, with a stronger strain of Arab blood than the rest, and he constantly disputed Coja's authority, and incited the other men to complain of their loads and their food. Mr. Halliday had to be continually on the watch, and only by dint of great firmness and by keeping Juma on one occasion without food for a day did he succeed in preventing a mutiny. Juma had brought his wife with him, a very stout negress of some Bantu race; or rather, she had attached herself to the expedition when it had marched some ten miles out of Nairobi, and resolutely refused to leave. Her presence proved to be rather an advantage than otherwise, for once when Mr. Halliday had found it necessary to give Juma a stern reprimand, the woman volubly assisted him, demanding of her husband why he was such a fool as to endanger his pay. Juma was evidently in some awe of his spouse, and Coja told John privately that she had a terrible tongue.

At length the safari arrived at the site of the farm, and though Mr. Halliday did not flatter himself that his troubles were over, he felt a great relief that the anxieties of the journey were a thing of the past. The first proceeding was to construct a substantial boma. Then he selected a site for his bungalow, fixing on a pleasant knoll above the river and at a distance of about two hundred yards from it. John pleaded for a position nearer the river, but Mr. Halliday pointed out that the stream was at present shrunk, and would no doubt swell to a much greater width in the rainy season, when exhalations from it might be dangerous to health. He had brought a couple of tents to live in while the bungalow was building; his natives ran up grass huts for themselves; and within twenty-four hours of their arrival, with the tents pitched, the huts erected, the sheep and cattle grazing, and a boma enclosing them all, the place had already begun to assume the aspect of a settlement.

During the first night the sleep of the camp was disturbed by the distant roaring of lions, and Mr. Halliday took turns with John to watch. They had learnt from Mr. Gillespie that the lion stalks his prey in absolute silence, so that they did not fear an actual visitation while the roars continued; and though the sounds came nearer towards the morning, the dread beasts made no attempt to break in. Examining the ground on the following day, Mr. Halliday found pug marks about half-a-mile from the enclosure, and a little further away the scanty remains of a zebra. The proximity of lions was somewhat perturbing. Sometimes, as Mr. Halliday had learnt, the mere presence of man was enough to drive them away; but if they had once tasted human flesh they showed extraordinary audacity and cunning in obtaining further victims. As a precaution, he caused an inner boma to be erected around the tents and the grass huts of the men, so that if lions should break into the outer enclosure they would find another barrier between them and human prey.

During the daytime the building of the bungalow and the cattle-sheds proceeded apace. There was plenty of wood in the neighbourhood, and the people of the village beyond the river assisted in cutting and transporting the timber in exchange for a small quantity of cloth, beads, or wire. No work could be got out of the porters, except a few of the Wakamba, who began to prepare the ground around the bungalow for cultivation. Mr. Halliday would willingly have seen the backs of the whole company, but Juma declared that they must rest a few days after their long march before returning to Nairobi; and having no means of expelling them Mr. Halliday must needs submit, though he hoped their stay would be short. Apart from other reasons why their presence was undesirable, they consumed a prodigious amount of food, which had to be purchased from the chief; and while the Wakamba were satisfied with grain and fruits, the Swahili demanded meat, which meant that either some of the cattle must be killed, or the Hallidays must go hunting for their unwelcome guests.

One day Wasama, the Masai herdsman, reported that a number of the sheep had strayed. Not willing to lose them, Mr. Halliday and John set off with Wasama and two or three of the Wakamba to find them, taking their rifles in the hope of bringing down some game for the men. They tracked the wanderers through the long grass to the west of the encampment, and found that the trail led them into the woods on the rising ground in that direction. There they lost the trail, and scattered, the Englishmen arranging to fire a shot as a signal to the others if either of them came upon the track of the missing animals.

John was making his way through the wood, bending close to the ground, when he suddenly came upon a small hut standing by itself in a little glade. It consisted of four upright logs, the interspaces filled with brushwood, and covered with a roof of twisted boughs. He halted, wondering whose dwelling it might be, and then, a movement among the undergrowth at the rear of the hut attracting his attention, he walked slowly towards the spot, holding his rifle in readiness to encounter danger. To his amazement he saw a quaint little figure emerge from the thicket. It was the form of an elderly man, not more than four feet high, dark brown in colour, with strangely bent shins, longish hair streaked with grey, and protruding jaws. He wore nothing but a loose cloak of undressed skin hung from the shoulders, and he carried a small bow. Still more to John's surprise, the little man came forward, and held out his hand with a frank gesture of friendliness, uttering a word or two in a low, quiet voice. John shook his hand, feeling a little confused in his inability to speak to the man; then, thinking that he might be able to assist in the search for the sheep, he fired off his rifle, upon which the man sprang back into his hut with every mark of terror.

The shot soon brought up the rest of the party, and on John explaining why he had fired, Wasama went to the entrance of the hut and shouted into the interior. After a little hesitation the owner came out, and a brief conversation ensued between the two men, at the close of which Wasama, who knew enough English to make himself understood, explained that the man was one of the Wanderobbo tribe and was living quite alone. This fact was rather surprising, for the African natives always live in communities, large or small. But after further speech with the hermit, Wasama said that he had no tribe or village, all his people having been killed a long while ago. He had since lived in this little hut, occupying himself, after the manner of his people, in collecting wild honey and hunting, selling the skins of the animals he killed to the neighbouring villagers.

Mr. Halliday asked whether the man had seen anything of his sheep, and the Wanderobbo at once offered to help in the search in return for a few beads. The party set off again, and, emerging from the wood at its southern extremity, the little man soon discovered the trail, and the wanderers were seen placidly grazing half-a-mile away. The Wanderobbo seemed much more delighted with the few beads given him than the value of the gift appeared to justify, and at parting shook hands warmly with the Englishmen, promising, when Wasama had told him of their settlement, to bring them some honey shortly. Wasama collected the sheep and began to herd them back towards the farm, Mr. Halliday and the others going a little farther in pursuance of his intention of shooting something for the larder. But an hour's search revealing no trace of game, he started to return. He had just overtaken Wasama, about a mile from camp, when he saw Said Mohammed hastening towards him at a run.

"I hope there's nothing wrong," he said, but as the Bengali drew nearer it was plain from his perturbed countenance that he bore bad news.

"Master and esteemed sir," he said, panting as he came up, "I regret to inform you that a calamity has transpired."

"What is it?" asked Mr. Halliday, as the cook, who was of substantial physique, paused to recover breath.

"Larceny, sir. Juma, that badmash, awful scoundrel, sir, has lifted, or shall I say pinched, four donkeys, a dozen rifles, and a regular heap of trade goods, and has decamped, bunked, sir, with the Swahilis, who knows where?"

"What was Coja about?" demanded Mr. Halliday, at the same time quickening his pace.

"That, sir, deponent knoweth not. In fact, I have not seen Coja for some time, and suspect that he winked the other eye."

"How long ago was this?"

"I do not know the exact moment, since I was engaged in washing crockery after our matutinal repast, and did not discover the crime until I had made a hole in it; but on a modest computation I should say, not less than five hours ago."

"Soon after we left, John. Which way did the men go?"

"Of that also I am in blissful ignorance, sir."

"We'll soon track them, anyway. John, we must go after them."

They hurried on towards the camp, taking Wasama with them, and leaving the sheep in charge of the Wakamba. When they reached the settlement, it was apparently deserted, except by the Indian carpenters and Juma's negro wife, who, as soon as she saw them, began excitedly to harangue some person out of sight, and then ran behind the bungalow, the walls of which were already up, and dragged forth Coja, whom she brought, a sheepish and crestfallen object, before his master.

Mr. Halliday did not delay either to reprimand or to receive explanations, but ordered Coja and the four Wakamba who had followed him from his hiding-place to sling on their cooking-pots and a little food and prepare to accompany him in chase of the fugitives.

"We don't know how long it will take us," he said to John. "Said Mohammed, you must come with us; we may be a day or two and shall want you to cook. Juma's wife seems a capable body; we'll leave her in charge. Coja, look for their tracks, and go on; we'll follow you."

Within a quarter of an hour of reaching camp the party set off, numbering eight in all. The track was very clear. For three miles it followed the route by which the safari had come several days before; then, to Mr. Halliday's surprise, it made a sudden turn westward.

"I made sure they would strike for the coast," he said. "They won't dare show themselves in any of our settled parts, and I don't understand their going off into the interior. They've had a good start of us, but we travel lighter and ought to catch them if we don't lose the trail."

The party hurried on, not pausing, though the day was now at its hottest. The trail led through open country, and across several streams, some of them of fair size. Here there were signs that the donkeys had given trouble, the soft earth at the brink being so trampled and cut up as to suggest that the animals had had to be pushed and hauled into the water. The trail was for the most part easily followed, for the fugitives had clearly been in too great a hurry to attempt to cover it. Once or twice, when it crossed stony ground, Coja was temporarily at fault, and he then declared he wished they had the Wanderobbo with them, for there were no people like the Wanderobbo for following a trail. Were they not matchless elephant hunters? But a little skirmishing beyond such stony tracts sufficed to pick up the trail again, and pushing on without respite, rest, or food, until sundown, Coja said that the newness of the footprints showed that the quarry was not far ahead. Darkness fell, however, without their having sighted the fugitives, and since they were all thoroughly tired and hungry, Mr. Halliday decided to halt for rest and a meal, and to resume the pursuit in the night if the moon rose, or at dawn.

"I say, father," said John, as they came to a halt, "we mustn't light a fire, or we'll give ourselves away."

"Quite right. We shall have to do without our cocoa to-night, and keep an extra sharp look-out for lions."

The white men had to satisfy themselves with biscuit and water from a brook; the natives ate some of the roasted beans without which they never travel. With the first glimmer of dawn the party were up and on the trail. Two hours' hard marching, at a pace which the natives had never known before, brought them up with the thieves. Coja was the first to catch sight of them, and he held up his hand as a sign to the rest to halt, informing Mr. Halliday in a whisper that the fugitives were only a little distance ahead, in the act of crossing a stream. Half of them had, indeed, already crossed; the remainder were trying to induce the donkeys to face the water.

"Can we catch them?" Mr. Halliday asked.

"Yes, sah, go round about," answered the man.

He led them in a direction at right angles to the path, so as to make a circuit and come upon the runaways from among the thick vegetation at the brink of the river. But Coja's advice turned out to be bad. They had reached the bank and were wheeling to burst upon the Swahilis, when they were suddenly descried by those who had crossed. A shout warned the men struggling with the donkeys; without a moment's hesitation they let go of the animals and took to their heels. When Mr. Halliday came upon the scene nothing was in sight but the donkeys, which on being released had scrambled up the bank out of the river and begun to bray with pleasure at the riddance of their loads.

"We ought to have come straight instead of round about," cried Mr. Halliday, vexed at his failure to punish the men. It was obviously hopeless to pursue them further. The scrub was dense; the Swahilis had good rifles and ammunition; and being relieved of impedimenta, the loads of goods having been left on the farther bank when they fled, they could travel much faster than Mr. Halliday and his party, fatigued after their forced march.

"We must be satisfied with having got back our donkeys and their loads," said Mr. Halliday. "The men are a good riddance; but I grudge those rifles of ours. However, it can't be helped. We must keep a sharp eye on our people, and fire out at once any we can't trust."

The loads abandoned by the runaways were brought across the river without interference, and after they had been strapped on the donkeys' backs the little caravan started to return to the farm.

CHAPTER THE SIXTH--Raided by Lions

The return march was not so hurried as the pursuit, and it was the afternoon of the fifth day after their departure when the little party arrived at the farm. Mr. Halliday was surprised that none of the Wakamba had come to meet him, thinking that they must have descried him from afar; and still more surprised when, on entering the enclosure, he could not see any of his people. Surely they had not all deserted! Passing through the second boma, however, he heard a howl, and immediately afterwards the natives came rushing pell-mell towards him out of their grass huts, Wasama and Lulu, Juma's wife, leading the way. They crowded about him, all shouting together, and making such a din that Coja himself could not at once distinguish what they were saying. But when Mr. Halliday had sternly called for order, Coja made out that the people were in a terrible state of fright, because a cow had been carried away during the night without a sound.

They declared that the robber must be the devil whom Mr. Halliday had professed to slay.

"Nonsense!" said Mr. Halliday. "It must have been a lion."

But no--Wasama declared it could not have been a lion, for he had not heard a lion's roar, and there was no breach in the outer boma: only a devil could have passed through it without forcing a gap.

When Mr. Halliday set Coja to question the man, however, he learnt that neither he nor any other of the natives had stirred outside the inner enclosure that day, so that they were hardly in a position to know whether the boma had been broken or not. An examination of it soon revealed a gap in the western side, and bits of tawny hide were sticking to the thorns. Mr. Halliday insisted on Wasama following up the tracks which even his inexperienced eye discovered, and within a quarter of a mile he came upon some bones and a few remnants of a carcase, from which a couple of vultures flew away. Wasama, however, persisted in his assertion that the track was not that of a lion, and the others backing him up, Mr. Halliday sent John and Coja to the wood to fetch the Wanderobbo, determined to clear up the point before dark.

The Wanderobbo came bringing a small gourd of wild honey which he offered to Mr. Halliday. The little man threw one glance on the blood-bespattered ground, and then said that the tracks were undoubtedly those of two lions, which would probably return to the spot during the coming night.

"Then we'll stay and wait for them, John," said Mr. Halliday. "We mustn't be molested in this way, and the sooner we teach the beasts a lesson, the better."

But the Wanderobbo, when this was explained to him, earnestly advised the white men not to do anything of the sort. There was no tree at hand, he pointed out, in which the hunters could rest and watch for the lions, and they, having far keener sight than men, would merely stalk them. In the darkness they could not even see to shoot. He said that they had better return to the settlement and watch inside the boma; and since darkness would soon fall, he begged to be taken in for the night, to which Mr. Halliday readily agreed.

Neither of the Englishmen slept that night. They sat at their tent door, with their rifles within reach, listening to the distant roaring, and awaiting with a nervous impatience the onset of the terrible beasts. The roars drew nearer, then ceased. The men clutched their rifles, and stole into the outer enclosure, where the sheep were huddled together in terror. They waited for several hours, peering into the darkness, but neither saw nor heard any more of the marauders, though when they went out with the Wanderobbo in the morning, they traced the spoor of lions within a few yards of the boma.

This experience was repeated for several nights following. To lessen their fatigue, Mr. Halliday and John took turns to watch, but though each night they heard the roars, there was no attempt to break in. Thinking that the fires, which were kept burning all night, were proving effectual in scaring the beasts, both father and son decided one day to go to sleep as usual. But in the middle of the night they were startled by a yell. Springing up, they seized their rifles, and rushed out of the tent in their pyjamas. There was a great commotion among the animals in the outer enclosure, and dashing through them, Mr. Halliday saw that a gap had been broken in the boma no more than three yards from one of the fires. The man whose turn it was to replenish it with fuel, and whose yell had awakened the white men, said that a lion had sprung through without warning and carried off a sheep. It was useless to attempt to pursue the robber in the dark, and Mr. Halliday could only swallow his vexation and return to his interrupted sleep.

Nothing disturbed the work of the settlement during the daytime. The Indian carpenters were making good progress with the bungalow and the other sheds which Mr. Halliday had decided to erect on the north side, nearest the river. The soil outside the boma was being slowly prepared for crops, and finding after a few days that his Wakamba porters were but indifferent labourers, Mr. Halliday dismissed them, resolving to rely upon the people of the neighbouring villages for such farm labour as he required. He intended to bring only a small area under cultivation at first, for the purpose of growing enough grain and vegetables for his own consumption. Difficulties of transit would prevent him from dealing in farm produce; the work of driving his cattle by and by over a hundred miles to market would no doubt prove arduous enough.

But though the days were thus placid, the nights became a horror. If a watch was kept, the peace of the encampment was undisturbed except by the remote and harmless roars; but as soon as the weary Englishmen determined to enjoy a full night's rest, the thorn fence would be broken at some new spot, and when the sheep and cattle were numbered in the morning it was found that one or more was missing. The natives became scared, and as for Mr. Halliday, he declared it was positively uncanny.

"One would think the beasts have the gift of second sight," he said. "I don't wonder our village friends kept their cattle off these grounds and believed in Gilmour's devil."

The only incident that relieved the tension and afforded a little amusement was the discovery one morning that the lion in his haste had snatched up a bag of rice, which was found at some little distance, the grains scattered about as though the thief had lost his temper when he became aware of the mistake.

It was fortunate indeed for the little community that the lions were apparently not man-eaters. A lion that has once tasted man thenceforth scorns lesser fare, and Coja told his employers harrowing stories of the reign of terror under which the coolies who had been engaged in laying the Uganda railway had lived. Night after night the terrible beasts had crept into the native encampments and stolen forth in dead silence with their hapless prey, ceasing their depredations for months at a time, but returning when the men were lulled to security, and beginning their havoc over again. Mr. Halliday had heard of this from Mr. Gillespie in Nairobi; but the story told now by one who had actually lived in the camps thus visited at night, and punctuated by the roaring of lions at a distance, made a much more powerful and harrowing impression. At any moment the lions might become man-eaters. They had only to stumble upon a native in their nocturnal raids and then the life of no man would be safe.