Part 14

Ten minutes later, he slowed down and allowed the foremost among the pack to reach him. Most were scratched and torn by the thorns that could not penetrate Tusker's hide, but they were game, and the first comers flung themselves upon him. Tusker enjoyed the next minute or two, bitten and worried though he was, and when he broke through the pack and started off again his tusks, that had been white, were red, almost as red as his angry little eyes, Three dogs were gasping on the ground, one dying and the other two so badly ripped that had they been in an air less pure they must have died before nightfall.

The Hunter came up before the sound of the pursuit had quite rolled away, examined each dog quickly but carefully, gave a surgical needle, some thread and a little bottle to one of the trackers, and started off with the rest of the company. The tracker washed and sewed the wounds of the two living dogs, made them as comfortable as he could and left them for one of the servants to bring home. As they had not been fed for four and twenty hours he knew they would recover from their wounds.

Meanwhile Tusker rumbled through a scrub so dense and prickly that, by taking a sudden turn in a thicket, he was able to let the pack pass him. Quick as thought he doubled on his own tracks a little way, then turned sharp to the right avoiding the huntsman and his party, and made straight for a little river. He paused on the brink and drank, but did not dare to wallow or cover his hot head with the cool mud, for he heard in the distance the cry of the hounds at fault and the voice of the huntsman cheering them to find the line again. He forded the river, landing some distance lower down on the opposite bank, and travelled a few hundred yards into the forest.

"Safe at last," said Tusker, and began to hunt for a lair, going backwards and forwards, sometimes travelling in a circle, and testing the softness of the ground with his snout. At last he found a soft sheltered thicket, and rested from his labours, resolving to wallow by the river at nightfall.

The Hunter was puzzled while his pack endeavoured in vain to find the line. The trackers went on to where the scrub became thin, and tracks could show, but there were no fresh marks to guide them. Then the Hunter cast back, guessing shrewdly that Tusker had doubled on his own line; but the ground gave him no help, and the luncheon hour found the party still perplexed.

"If he went to the north," said the Hunter, "we may not find his track for weeks. If he went in any other direction he must cross the river so we will work the banks." And when the simple meal was over the Hunter led his trackers to the water, and they studied every mark on the bank. Several times the trackers thought they had found their quarry, for they met perfectly fresh prints among others that were any age from a day to a week, but the Hunter's eye was looking for the marks of a certain set of hoofs, of which the right hind one made the least mark, while the balance was ever on the left side, and the distances were as recorded in his notes.

Some time about four o'clock the Hunter found the track, and forded the river; and, just before sunset, saw where it led to the forest. He summoned his admiring trackers, but forebore to proceed. "The day after to-morrow at daybreak," was all he said, and then the party made its way home in the fast failing light, by no means dissatisfied with the day's work.

On that night Tusker wallowed long and comfortably, and uprooted a fine lot of wild radishes and turnips. His new lair was comfortable and he was no worse for his adventure, but he was ill-pleased on the morning of the second day when without word or warning a mongrel, whose face seemed familiar, showed at the entrance to his lair and called on him to fight.

Quick as thought, without word of parley Tusker rushed out and sought the impenetrable covers that had helped him before. He crossed the river and gained on his pursuers.

In a clearing amid the thickets he came suddenly upon a herd that scattered in all directions as he gave word of the following pack.

Once more dogs were at fault, but the Hunter was not. Within an hour after, careful scrutiny of a score of tracks, he had picked out that of a boar that ran with a list to the left, and trod lightly on its right hind hoof, and moved at a certain recorded pace with certain recorded distances between the hoofs.

Within two hours the hounds were closing in on Tusker whose way to comparative safety lay over a large expanse of forest that was more or less open. Beyond that part the thicket was the worst in the forest, and the Hunter knew that the chances would be with the boar if he could reach that stronghold. When Tusker heard the pack bearing down upon him, he realised that the Hunter was his master, and that only good luck could save him now. He thought of the solitary pig from the mountains and wondered if he looked like him in the hour of his distress.

"I'll try again," said Tusker to himself, as he found the dogs gaining on him in the more open country. "The Hunter may be far behind," and then he set his fore-legs firmly on the ground and faced the furious howling pack, using his terrible tusks with all the force he could put behind them.

A few moments later he saw the Hunter emerging from the bush, and broke through again with the dogs, cut and wounded, upon his heels, encouraged by their master's voice.

He could not go far now. Once again he turned and faced his adversaries, forgetting everything now in his rage and conscious only of a lust for blood.

Suddenly there was a shrill whistle, and before it ceased to echo, the pack opened to the right and left, leaving Tusker alone. He looked up uncertain what to do, saw the Hunter standing sixty or seventy yards away from him with a shining barrel at his shoulder, felt a sudden violent shock, heard as in the far distance a sharp strange sound, knew that the dogs were upon him again, but could not feel their teeth or the ground he was lying on.

Another whistle, the dogs parted again, the Hunter came up knife in hand, his trackers following.

"No need," he said, thrusting the shining steel into its case. "The bullet went to the heart. A splendid fellow."

Footnote 4:

The Argan Forest is in Southern Morocco, and takes its name from the Argan, a species of olive tree.

THE STORY OF A SLAVE

In the early days Marzuk saw life from a secure position on his mother's back. So soon as morning dawned, the pair would leave their mud hut beyond the northern gate of Timbuctoo, and seek the market, there to spread out and arrange such produce as had been collected overnight for the day's sale.

In their season Aminah, the mother of Marzuk, sold the three fruits we have never seen in our western world, the rich karita or butter fruit, the satisfying nata which yields a sort of sweet flour in pods, and the cheese fruit, upon which a man may dine and not go hungry.

Marzuk's mother was a black woman from below the Niger, in the Soudan, and very ugly to the eyes of all save her little boy. But her white loin cloths and shifts were cleaner than those of most of her neighbours, and worn with some nicety.

She wore her hair in three rolls on the top of her head, supported by a white fillet about her brows, and she was so industrious and cheery that the day's end seldom found any of her market stock unsold, and generally saw quite an imposing heap of cowries in the old calabash that was kept for use as a till. Money was unknown.

So Marzuk, well-fed, grew strong and straight and comely, learning to help his mother in her work, and to play truant from his duties and adventure alone into Timbuctoo itself, and to the Niger banks beyond. When he returned Aminah would beat him soundly, and cry over him in mother fashion, while painting for him luridly the dangers of the road.

She spoke with rolling eyes and bated breath of the fierce Touaregs, the brigands from the Sahara, who went through the streets of Timbuctoo veiled against the glare of the African sun; of the hippopotami by the Niger's bank that were ever lying in wait to make meals of naughty boys; of the treacherous and pathless sand-dunes to the north, and of hungry monkeys chattering in the trees--monkeys that were really little children changed from their natural shape for disobedience to parents. But neither stripes nor warnings could keep Marzuk's feet from straying.

The grass lands near the river, where the sheep pastured, were Marzuk's favourite resort, because of the white ospreys that dwelt there. These birds loved to follow the sheep from place to place, taking no notice of shepherds or farmers, but ever intent upon the actions of their four-footed friends.

Yet the boy kept well out of the way of all Touaregs, the veiled men of the desert of whom his mother had spoken. He watched them from a safe distance when they roamed through the city, spear in hand, ready and willing to quarrel with any native who should cross their path.

They wore a head-dress that covered their fore-heads and helped to shade their eyes, and a veil that shrouded the lower part of the face and kept the mouth free from sand.

Their true home was the desert, where they reared vast flocks on scanty pasture, but they held the natives of Timbuctoo in no respect, and would stalk through the market-place, spear at the ready and sword beside them, and call the men of the city "Sand-eaters," because they went with mouths and nostrils uncovered. On their side the natives spoke of the Touaregs as the "Abandoned of God," and would have kept them from the city altogether, had their strength been equal to their will.

Day by day camel caravans reached Timbuctoo, coming across the desert from Morocco, Algeria or Tunisia. Marzuk's one interest in his home district was connected with these caravans.

Twice a year, in midwinter and midsummer, the camels would arrive in huge convoys. There would be many hundreds of the unhandy supercilious beasts there at one time, enjoying their longed-for rest, and making hearty meals on the more succulent growths of the dwarf forest.

The camel-drivers themselves, gaunt, hard-lived men, with faces like birds of prey, had many adventurous tales to tell, and Marzuk was a very ready listener. He heard how the veiled thieves of the desert held up whole caravans and taxed them, helping themselves moderately if unopposed, but quite ready for wholesale killing if resisted in any way. He heard, too, of the great salt country, visited by all caravans coming from Morocco.

"It is a wonderful place," said Hadj Abdullah the camel-driver, on a day when he arrived at Timbuctoo after six months' absence, "and Allah has set it in the midst of the desert where no unbeliever may see it. The houses are fashioned out of salt, and so is the mosque, there are camel-skins over all the buildings, and the people live on their salt."

"Oh, my master, do they eat it?" asked Marzuk.

"Silence, little empty head," said Aminah, his mother, who listened beside him. And the camel-driver continued:--

"Twice a year we go there, carrying away the white salt, which is the best, and the red-veined if the other supply has failed. In return we leave dates and corn and cotton, and so these people live.

"So terrible is the glare of the salt," added the camel-driver, "that if we have women or children, we leave them in the oases, a day's journey from the city."

Besides the precious salt of El Djouf, which was stamped in Timbuctoo and sent down the Niger to districts where it was worth its weight in gold, the caravans brought indigo, blue cotton and white, mirrors for the women, calico, sugar, tea and coffee, and white paper for the Marabouts. On their journey home they were supposed to take gold dust and ivory, the long feathers of the wild ostrich and undressed leather. But the head of the caravan knew of a commodity more valuable than these, and some of the panniers that had carried salt to Timbuctoo had living freight on the way back.

Hadj Abdullah employed agents in the city, and well he knew how to arrange such business as he had, of whatever kind it might be, without exciting the suspicion of the natives.

* * * * *

The camels slowly recovered their strength, the produce of Hadj Abdullah's great caravan had been disposed of profitably by barter, and the goods he had received in exchange would afford plenty of work for his beasts.

One morning the Moor stopped before the calabashes where Aminah's stores were placed. Marzuk was by his mother's side for once. Already in his thirteenth year, he looked strong, healthy and intelligent. Hadj Abdullah noted these things, whilst seeming to examine Aminah's little store.

"Oh, my mother," he said with grave courtesy, "have you any cheese-fruit, or has all gone for the year?"

"I fear it has been eaten, my lord," replied the black woman respectfully.

"The pity," he replied. "For a plentiful supply such as my house (family) desires, I would give a whole piece of fine blue cloth--the last that is left me. Perhaps some fruit remains yet in the plantations by the river. Can the boy go seek it?"

"I will send him, my lord," replied Aminah, delighted beyond measure at the idea of getting a piece of the cloth that cowries could not buy.

"He must be back before the second day at sunrise," said the Moor, and resumed his walk.

So Marzuk set off at daybreak on the following morning with many warnings of the ill that would befall if his return were delayed. He passed through the town, leaving it by the southern gate before anybody but the guard was awake, and was soon knee-deep in the meadows that the Niger keeps ever green.

He tramped along merrily enough, quite unconscious that two Arabs had followed him from the huts beyond the southern wall. The ospreys were everywhere--Marzuk saw nothing but the white birds, and the shining river, and the butterflies, blue and gold, that fluttered over the meadows.

On a sudden he heard footsteps, and saw the Arabs hurrying in his direction. He stood to see them pass, and as they reached him they turned suddenly and flung themselves upon him. There was no struggle, only the white birds heard one choked cry of terror, and some few rose from the meadow to the comparative safety of a neighbouring tree.

His captors carefully gagged Marzuk, and bound legs and arms tightly with cords of palmetto, then he was rolled in sacking and carried back to a hut. When the Arabs returned to the city they carried what seemed to be a bale of raw cotton slung on a pole between them, and they made unchallenged way to the caravan quarter, beyond the city's northern gate.

Within the vast enclosure of thorn and cactus that inclosed the caravanserai only the last great bales of merchandise remained for the camels, and among these Marzuk was left to pant for breath in an atmosphere that would have stifled any but a negro. Towards the afternoon, when he had seen his latest acquisition safely stored, Hadj Abdullah sought the market-place by the mosque.

"Oh, mother," said he to Aminah, "has the lad returned with the cheese-fruit?"

"No, my master," she replied angrily. "I am cursed in the boy. He goes on errands and returns when he likes."

"I am sorry, mother," replied Hadj Abdullah, "for by Allah's grace to-morrow's sunrise will see us on the road again."

From the mosques of the city the Mueddin called for the prayer said by devout Moslems at the hour of the false dawn. On walls and battlements the early wakened doves were fluttering sleepily, the guards at the gates still slept, the life of the city had not stirred. But beyond the caravan quarter the camels and mules of Hadj Abdullah were moving out slowly in single file.

There were seventy or eighty camels in all and ten mules, some of which carried Arab women who sat in the comfort born of habit, smoking pipes of the native tobacco.

First on the road were six camels, each carrying two children in what had been salt-panniers.

Marzuk, whose thongs had been loosened, and whose thirst had been assuaged, was but one of the twelve whom Hadj Abdullah had bought secretly or stolen, and, beyond the men engaged by him and the natives he had bribed, none knew aught of the camel's freight.

Frightened as never in his life before, bruised and sickened by the camel's irregular stride, his flesh scarred and his bones aching from the pressure of the raw hide thongs that had bound his limbs, faint for lack of food, and with nerves strained almost to breaking point, Marzuk was never in doubt about what had befallen him. He had been captured to be sold as a slave.

From the resting-place of the caravan the last camel had started on the road to Morocco, across eight hundred miles of desert, steering a north-north-westerly course over a track marked by the skeletons of men and beasts that had fallen by the way.

In her mud hut Aminah, never suspecting the truth, thought angrily and fearfully of the absent boy, and prayed that he might safely escape the hippopotami coming for their nightly prowl along the river banks.

As day succeeded day, other caravans arrived from the desert, but never a sign of the lad from the riverside came to relieve a mind grown weary now from anxiety and self-reproach. Weeks passed, and months, until Aminah knew that her prayers had failed to prevent evil spirits sacrificing her boy to the wild beasts of the river. And then she grew old suddenly, and within the year her place in the market was vacant.

Hadj Abdullah's caravan made slow progress. The dwarf forest left behind, the sand waves of the Sahara stretched out before them, and in traversing this dry and burning sea the caravan endured days and weeks of travelling that taxed men and beasts to the uttermost.

Once a day, at sunset, the caravan halted, and then Marzuk and his eleven companions were taken from their panniers and fed. The Hadj feared to travel by starlight, save when forced to it by anticipation of an attack by the veiled brigands of the desert, lest the track should be missed.

Marzuk's companion, a girl younger than himself, proved unable to endure the camel's irregular stride, the scanty food, and the blinding sunlight. Before they had been two weeks on the road she could not eat. One morning she broke out into a fit of screaming that passed gradually into moans, and then stopped abruptly. In the evening, when the baskets were lowered, Hadj Abdullah was summoned in haste, but he could do no more than curse the man who had sold the child to him for half a bar of salt, and had sworn that she was sound and fit for the caravan journey. A little hole was scooped out in the sand; the tally of the caravan had been reduced by one. Next morning the burdens were rearranged, and Marzuk was carried in a basket with another lad, the camel that had carried him being requisitioned to carry one of the drivers who had fallen sick.

For many years the hardships of the journey remained fresh and vivid in Marzuk's memory. Oases were long days apart, the brackish water was always hot and never plentiful, they saw no living things unless a viper ran across their path, or a few desert antelopes showed for a moment on the horizon. Sometimes, when the eyes ached behind tight-closed lids from the cruel glare of sky and sand, Marzuk would wake with a start at his companion's cry--"See, Marzuk! they are taking us home again". Then they saw Timbuctoo spread before them, the mosques clearly to be distinguished, the tall palm trees and clay-built houses seemingly but a few miles away. The camels would raise their heads and lengthen their stride. But the visionary city would come no nearer, and gradually it would fade before their longing eyes--the mirage that had set it down amid the sands had vanished into aching sun-scorched space.

Weeks passed slowly, so slowly that Marzuk's pannier mate, a weakling at best, succumbed to the trials of the road, and was left to rest under a little mound of sand that the first wind would level. Marzuk, too, began to lose strength, and passed long hours in a state of semi-consciousness, but he had been reared well and generously, and before he had time to break down altogether, the oasis of Tindouf was reached.

The back of the weary journey was broken. Thereafter oases were more frequent, the caravan passed great weekly markets, the country of the Touaregs was quite left behind, and the natives met were men of fair skin, though sunburnt. The Atlas Mountains appeared on the eastern horizon, filling Marzuk with brief terror, for he had never seen snow, or imagined hills like those that filled the far distance. To the little black boy from Timbuctoo, the great mountain range appeared as the awesome wall of a new world, but his curiosity helped him to pluck up spirit and prepare to face whatever the future might have in store. The Draa country was left behind, the Sus country reached and passed, Tarudant being seen hull down on the western horizon, like a ship far out at sea; and one fine morning, when rosy light peeping over the snow-filled caverns of the higher Atlas found the caravan already upon the road, the Moors raised their voices and praised a saint whose name the lad had never heard.

Marzuk rubbed sleepy eyes and saw in the plains a long way before them a great city in a forest of palm. Countless minarets glittered in the early light, the sun lighted some river of size and importance.

"Oh, my master!" cried Marzuk to the Moor who led a camel by his side, "is that a real city?"

"Truly," was the grave reply, "it is Marrakesh[5] itself."

II.

The long file of camels came at last to rest outside the Dukala gate and Hadj Abdullah placed his praying carpet on the ground, turned towards Mecca and returned thanks. No brigand had claimed dues of his merchandise, and out of the twelve children he had bought or stolen eight remained alive--a higher average than most travellers could record.

Marzuk, used from early days to fend for himself, with no special ties, and a feeling of confidence in his own capacities that none but a Soudanee would have felt under similar circumstances, gazed about him in deep wonderment. Before him stretched a city far exceeding Timbuctoo in area and importance, a place surrounded by a wall that seemed without end; he saw more palms in one direction than his native place boasted on all sides together, and the minarets of countless mosques standing slender and erect as the palms themselves.

That night they slept within Morocco City, in a great fandak indescribably filthy. The tired mules were brought in with the slaves, the camels remaining in the outer market in charge of their owner. Hadj Abdullah hired his beasts in Morocco City, paying a sum equivalent to two pounds a head for the journey out and home. In the fandak he addressed a brief warning to the children. They would have three days' rest and all the food they could eat, and on the evening of the third day they would be sold. Let them do their best and all would be well with them, if they were rebellious--he closed his mouth abruptly, but his silence was significant enough.

Left in charge of the keeper of the fandak, the children lay at their ease in the reeking straw, and gave their three days to eating and drinking and singing odds and ends of songs they had heard at home. No sound of the city reached them, save at the hours of prayer, when from every minaret the faithful were called to acknowledge the Unity of Allah. On the afternoon of the third day they were taken to the baths by a strange man, and each child was arrayed in clean white linen garments, supplemented in the case of the girls by kerchiefs of many colours.