Part 16

Brentham and his Wanyamwezi porters helped Mr. Stott complete his new station. Or they organized great shooting parties which enriched Mr. Stott with ivory that he might some day sell, as against trade goods and tea; or they accumulated biltong for Roger's expedition, besides finding meat for the day-by-day food of these hungry Wanyamwezi. To meet Mrs. Stott's scruples and objections they had themselves paddled in Wambugwe canoes farther up the lake and shot elephants, zebras, buffaloes, antelopes, on the flats twenty miles to the north of the Stotts' station. Or they rode donkeys and travelled twenty miles southwards, back along the road they had come (and got faint, far-off rumours of men fighting, leagues and leagues away, which made them anxious).

Or they laid out plantations in the rich alluvial soil behind the station and fenced them in. There Mr. Stott could plant his poor remnant of English vegetable seeds, or with greater hope the maize, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, ground-nuts, beans, and manioc of the agricultural and fishing Bantu population.

Then, on the twenty-first day of this busy three weeks, the Masai messengers once more squatted before the Stotts' baraza. Silently one of them tendered to Mrs. Stott a little package of dried banana leaves, tied with some native fibre. Inside a fold of old newspaper and a makeshift envelope made out of a copy-book cover, on one half-sheet of dirty copy-book paper, Ann sent Lucy this message:

Mbogo's Village, NOVEMBER SOMETHING OR OTHER, 1888.

DEAR LUCY,--

Your messengers arrived yesterday, but I had to keep them waiting for an answer and now they are impatient to go. The station has been attacked--I think it began at the end of October, but I am muddled about dates. John and Mr. Bayley were killed on the second day. Anderson and I are only wounded; we are recovering, though my headaches are awful. Josiah is dead, tell Halima. Help has come at last. But don't come back this way. The Ruga-ruga are all over Ugogo and there is fierce fighting in Nguru. The Masai fought splendidly on our side. Go on to the coast quick as you can, northern route. Can't write more now, but will send through more news to Unguja if I get the chance. Good-bye. John talked of nothing but you when he was dying. It's about broken my heart.

ANN JAMBLIN.

Lucy and Mrs. Stott looked at one another in horror and consternation as this note--written by a pencil that had been frequently moistened--fluttered to the ground from Lucy's nerveless fingers. She felt it was the only tribute to her husband's memory, to her real horror and remorse to assume a faintness she did not feel while Mrs. Stott led her dry-eyed to her tent and couch.

*CHAPTER XII*

*THE ATTACK ON THE STATION*

_From Mrs. Anderson, E.A.M., to Mr. Callaway, Agent of East African Mission, Unguja._

Mbogo's Village, Ulunga, Nguru, _Novr._ 30, 1888.

DEAR MR. CALLAWAY,--

You may have heard some rumour of what has happened to us here. You will find much of it described in the letter I have written to Mr. John Baines's mother. You can read this letter. Read it and then take notes. You have several clerks and none of them with a broken head like mine, I'll be bound, and plenty of good pens, ink and stationery. All I've got to write on is some old ruled exercise books and no envelopes. Well, make up some sort of a letter out of what I've written to Mrs. Baines senior, and then send it to the headquarters of the Mission in London; and post the letter to her, Mrs. Baines, Tilehurst, Reading. Tell them I'm recovering and I'm going to stay here till I am relieved and even perhaps afterwards, supposing I and my husband get quite well. You may be surprised at my change of surname, having known me as Miss Jamblin. Just before the attack on our station (Hangodi) occurred I went through a religious form of marriage with Mr. Ebenezer Anderson. Mrs. John Baines had gone away--her husband sent her off to the coast in the charge of Consul Brentham--and I did not think it right to stay at the Mission with three men and me unmarried; so I accepted Mr. Anderson's proposal. Mr. Baines married us, but as I supposed it wouldn't be legal without we were married again before the Consul at Unguja, we haven't lived together as man and wife, and won't till everything can be made right and proper. I only mention this in case either of us died.

You can also tell the big man at Unguja--Sir Godfrey Something--what has happened in case he cares to know. I don't suppose he does care. Those big pots always sneer at Nonconformist Missionaries. But I want him to know this. We should have all been killed and perhaps tortured and our station might have been utterly destroyed and our people carried off into slavery if it hadn't been first for the Masai, and most of all for an old Arab, Ali bin Ferhan--I think he spells his name. He's written it in Arabic on the piece of paper I enclose. He lives at Momoro, near the Lingani River. Well, for reasons too long to give he no sooner heard we were going to be attacked by the Ruga-ruga and the black Arabs (they were led by that limb of the Devil, Ayub bin Majidi, whom they nickname Mnazi-moja) than he came to our assistance. Mbogo and his people deserve a gold medal--not that any one will give it--they're only "Wa-shenzi" and we're only Nonconformists; they fought splendidly; but they were just giving way when this old Arab--just like a picture of Abraham he is--came up with a lot of his people armed with guns and carrying flags. And he called off the fighting. After that the Ruga-ruga and their leaders simply disappeared with all the plunder they could carry and we have been at peace ever since, with Ali bin Ferhani camped here and keeping guard over Ulunga. Ali doesn't like the Germans. He always wanted his beloved "Ekkels"--I suppose he means Sir James Eccles--to take the country for the English Queen. But he thinks bad will come if any white people are killed. He is so afraid the Germans will think he joined with the other Arabs that I now tell you all this, though every day I have a splitting headache. I really began this letter a week ago. I write a little every day, and now I think Ali will be able to get it sent through to the coast, to Mvita, perhaps.

The other letter--an exercise book tied up--is for Mrs. John Baines. I don't think any one ought to see it but herself. So please put it into an envelope and address it to her "To await arrival at Unguja." She started off for the Mvita coast with Captain Brentham a month ago. What's happened to her I don't know. I sent messengers to tell her her husband was dead.

I saw Mrs. Stott here last July when Mrs. John Baines had her premature confinement. Since then I only know that their station at Burungi was destroyed, but they got away safely somewhere else, where the Consul and Mrs. Baines afterwards found them.

Yours in the love of Jesus, ANN ANDERSON.

P.S. I ought perhaps to be more business-like, in spite of feeling so ill, in case there is any trouble about wills and say that their names were _Thomas Aldrich Bayley_ and _John Baines_ and that they died as near as I can reckon on October 29th, 1888. I haven't found any wills, but I am trying to get their effects together, though of course there is great confusion after the looting. I've also written a note for old Mrs. Bayley.

_From Mrs. Anderson, E.A.M., to Mrs. John Baines, c/o Mr. Callaway, Agent, East African Mission, Unguja._

Mbogo's Village, Ulunga, _November_, 1888.

DEAR LUCY,--

I am beginning to write this as near as I can guess November 15, but I've got out in my dates and no wonder. I've also got a broken head--I expect a touch of concussion besides a scalp wound--and it is simple agony to write for long. My eyes hurt so. I must however try to tell you--and John's mother--what has happened, so I shall write a little every day if I am fit to and send these letters to the coast by the first chance. Ali bin Ferhani thinks he can manage a messenger later on who would cross into the British "sphere." I expect you got my first message sent by the Masai? In case you didn't or in case something happens to me and I can't finish a long letter, I'll tell you the plain facts first: _John's dead, Bayley's dead, Josiah's dead_. Anderson and I are wounded. I'm nearly well. The station is only partially destroyed. Now you know the worst.

When I returned here from Burungi it was about the tenth of October, so far as we could keep count. John was very angry with me at first, for leaving you and for coming to live with three men and I a single woman. I well-nigh lost patience with him. But I said, Well if _that's_ all I'll marry one of you, I'll marry Ebenezer if he'll have me. Ebenezer Anderson didn't look overjoyed, but John said: That's all right; you came out to marry him, so the Mission expected, and you're only now fulfilling the contract. All right, I said, you're a minister of the Gospel, you could marry us at home, so you can do it here, only it won't be legal till we're re-married at the Consulate. But it'll be a marriage in God's eyes, which is the great thing. I felt reckless about it somehow. Of course I'm not going to live with Eb until all this trouble's over and everything is legal. Well, after that was done with, the country round seemed to be getting jumpy and Mbogo sent to say the Ruga-ruga under that Devil, Ayub, were coming to attack us, coming with lots of men and guns. So we sent out word to the Masai, and they turned up well. About three hundred spears. But after a bit they got tired of waiting, so went off somewhere else to do some raiding on their own account.

Towards the end of October--perhaps it was the 28th--no sooner was our first bell rung for dressing--half-past five--than we heard the most unearthly yelling and a tremendous firing of guns. I just got my clothes and boots on anyhow and the men turned out in shirts and trousers and with their boots unlaced. The bullets were flying like hail above the stockade, first of all too high. We dared not go to peep through for fear of being shot. Well, John didn't lose his head one bit. He gave out the Sniders to all our Walunga who could use them, and he and Bayley and Anderson took up the posts they had settled beforehand.

Then the Ruga-ruga made a rush almost up to the ditch which they seemed not to expect, and John and the men let them have it. Five or six were killed. After that Mbogo's Walunga came up and took them on the flank with guns and spears, and they didn't like it at all and withdrew for a spell. But I can't tell you everything--Perhaps some day I will if you ever care to hear it--I've got to write to John's mother as well as you.

The fighting in the afternoon was chiefly between the Ruga-ruga and Mbogo's villages. I suppose they thought they'd better finish _them_ off before they came again to us. They drove Mbogo's people out of all their villages except the big one near us, where Mbogo lives. This was higher up, and Mbogo and John had worked at its fortification on Captain Brentham's plan--it turned out to be much more easily defended than our place. Fortunately also the Ruga-ruga and the Arabs don't like fighting at night--Oh my headache, I must leave off for a bit....

Well, during that night we worked like Trojans--Who were the Trojans and why did they work hard? You ought to know with your superior education. We dug out a square pit in the middle of the station and lined it with dry grass. In it we arranged chairs and mattresses so that we could rest and sleep here out of reach of the bullets. We also turned the Chapel into a living-house and store, because its brick walls and iron roof made it secure against fire and fairly safe from bullets.

On the second day the Ruga-ruga, led on by Ayub, attacked us on the west side, where our stockade was weakest and where we were overlooked a little by that mound we used to call the Snakes's Hill. Brother Bayley was standing talking to me about some dressings he wanted for Josiah Briggs who had been shot in the foot, when suddenly he uttered a shriek, whirled round and fell at my feet. He died a few minutes afterwards. John was so infuriated at his death that in spite of my shouts to be careful, he climbed up to a look-out post and fired his double-barrelled sporting rifle at a group of Ruga-ruga on Snakes's Hill. Whilst he was stooping to reload a poisoned arrow struck him on the chest and penetrated his lung. A good many of the Ruga-ruga were Manyema savages, slaves of the Arabs, and they fought with bows and poisoned arrows. John scrambled down somehow on to the ground. Ebenezer Anderson helped me to carry him into the pit shelter and there we undressed him. He was streaming with blood and coughing up blood and fast losing consciousness. Somehow or other--oh, what a time it was!--we got the arrow-head out of the wound. I don't know even now how, for we were both of us bunglers and it had got partly wedged in the ribs. And we had to cut the poor dear about. Fortunately we had Bayley's instruments down with us in this pit. But I can't go into all these details. Shall I ever get this letter finished?

Whilst we were attending to John we heard a tremendous shouting. It was the Humba war song--the Masai, you know. They had come at last to our assistance and taken the Ruga-ruga rather by surprise. But just before they made their rush up the hill, the Ruga-ruga had contrived to shoot arrows with flaming cotton soaked in oil on to our thatched roofs. Fire was spreading from building to building except the Chapel and the store. My Big-geru had lost their heads. Up to that time they had been so good. Our Walunga were trying to open the doors of the stockade and dash out into the open country. Then the Ruga-ruga would have broken in and all would have been up with us. Fortunately the charge of the Masai came at that very moment, when I was beginning to doubt if God had not forgotten us. They killed lots of the Ruga-ruga and would hack off their heads and throw them back into our stockade.

Then the Ruga-ruga seemed to get reinforcements from the Ugogo direction--quite a large body of men, they say, led by two Arabs--the two Arabs whom John had got expelled a year ago by Mbogo for trading in slaves. They had got a small cannon and its noise and the landing of a stone cannon ball in the middle of a party of Masai gave them a fright, so that all of the Masai drew off from near our station and ran round to the high ground behind Mbogo's town. Once more it seemed as though nothing could save us. The Ruga-ruga fired stone balls at our stockade and seemed making up their minds to a rush.

Ebenezer was just splendid at this time. I'm not sorry now I agreed to marry him, though the poor dear is still pretty bad and hardly right in his mind yet. But just at this critical moment he and Josiah and five of our men who knew how to handle guns kept up such a fire with the rifles that they shot down several of the big men among the enemy. Then poor Josiah was shot in the stomach and died an hour or two afterwards. Ebenezer got a splinter of wood in his eye--through a cannon ball striking a post near him, and he was put out of action for a bit. Meantime nothing more happened. There was a lull. The Ruga-ruga drew off out of sight.

I could think of nothing but John all this time, though I had a feeling of being stunned and hurt myself. He recovered consciousness and talked of no one but you. I think he thought you were with him all the time, and I confess _that_ hurt me. It was Lucy my darling, my own true wife--and I wondered whether you _were_--and Lucy you've come back and now we'll go home together.... He didn't mention my name _once_, and I can't remember that he said a word about God. Perhaps he didn't know he was dying. Towards the last his body swelled dreadfully and he sank into a stupor. He must have died just about sunset. When he was going I seemed to be going too. I suppose I fainted, for when one of my Big-geru came down into the pit with some broth she'd made she set up a howling and a yelling saying we were both dead, that Bwana Fulata, as they called John, had taken me with him.

My girls undressed me and found then that I had been wounded all the time. A slug or a rusty nail fired out of one of the guns had ripped across my shoulders and the back of my head and I'd never noticed it. It must have been when Eb and I were helping John down into the pit--I thought some one then had given me a push. And while I sat beside John the blood had soaked all the back of my bodice and caked quite hard. It's left a kind of blood-poisoning, but I'm getting over it. Only it causes these awful headaches. And poor Eb before the fighting finished got hit in the arm, and then from our clumsy attempts to extract the iron filings which had struck him he got blood-poisoning too, much worse than me. I can't say what his temperature went up to because I can't find any of our clinical thermometers, but to judge from his ravings it must have been pretty high.

In the night following that second day, Mbogo came with a lot of his headmen and took us three away and all our Big-geru to inside his own village and put us in his women's quarters. _He's_ a white man if you like, under his skin. He was afraid we might all be burnt to death by the fire spreading inside our station. So we should have done. I lost my senses that night from weakness or shock or something. When I came to again I could hardly move my head for pain. But my girls bathed me and gave me wonderful potions of their own making and I was able to sit up. Mbogo came in, but spoke behind the door for modesty. What do you think of that in a black savage? A "Mshenzi"! Because he thought I might be undressed. But he said in Swahili: "Fear no more. Your friends are coming."

The next morning I heard that Ali bin Ferhani, who'd been a friend of John's--you remember?--had come with a big party of his followers, and hearing he was on his way the Ruga-ruga had bolted because they all respect him as a "Sheikh." He says he is going to stop here with his men till peace comes, or at any rate till white people take command here.

Your Masai messengers came two days after Ali bin Ferhani had arrived, and I wrote with great difficulty the message I sent you and got the Big-geru to do it up for me. Some of them write quite nicely themselves now, but only in Kagulu.

There's lots and lots more I could tell you if we ever meet again or I ever have time and plenty of paper. After the Ruga-ruga were gone and the fires were beaten out my Big-geru searched in the Chapel and the ruins of the school houses and found three copy-books and a stone bottle of ink and some pens. I've used nearly a copy-book each for you and John's mother and a bit of a one writing to Mr. Callaway and a short note to Mr. Bayley's mother. I haven't made a proper search yet, but I can't find any will left by John. I don't suppose he had much to leave you.

You'd better go now and marry your Captain. It's the least he can do after compromising you, whether it was his fault or not. You never loved John as he deserved to be loved and you did wrong to become engaged to him, as his mother always said. If you hadn't been there he'd have married me. And we should have been happy as happy because I'd have slaved for him. I loved him from the time we first met, because he was kind and polite to me even though I was not well favoured. He never laughed at my hymns as you used to do. They may have been rubbish, but I meant well. In those days I was that religious it had to come out somehow. I said I loved the Lord and I did--I thought. I ain't so sure about it now. His ways are truly _past finding out_ and I've given up trying, though I shall stick to Mission work for John's sake. John would have said the coming of Ali bin Ferhani was providential, but why couldn't Providence have acted a bit sooner and saved John and Brother Bayley? I suppose we shall know some day....

Well, good-bye, Lucy. Let me have a line to say you got this packet. I've no envelope to put it in.

I was going to finish up with Yours in the love of Jesus, but I really don't know....

ANN ANDERSON.

P.S. If you ever get to England and back Reading way, give my love to the Miss Calthorps and go in and see my Uncle at the shop and say I'm trying to do my duty out here and he isn't to bother. I think perhaps you'd better not go near Mrs. Baines--John's mother. You never know how she'll take things. She was that _set_ on John.

_December_ 1.

Ali bin Ferhani's pretty sure to-day he can get these letters through, so off this goes. I forgot to say that we're going to bury John and Mr. Bayley side by side in the pit we dug in the middle of the station. Eb is not in a fit state to be consulted, though his temperature seems going down. But I've decided for him. As soon as I can get about without too much aches and pains I shall see it done. If you get home you might communicate with the East African Mission and arrange for a Stone to be sent out to be put up over the grave. Somehow it seems to me John wants to be buried there. It may bring good luck to Hangodi.

ANN.

*CHAPTER XIII*

*THE RETURN TO UNGUJA*

Up the scarcely-discernible path they climbed, leaving the Happy Valley behind them; over the foothills and under cliff at the base of the northern escarpment, where the gaily flowering bushes in their early spring display gave way to tall forest trees, hung with lianas. The black Colobus monkeys with their white-plumed tails chattered and showed their teeth and flopped from branch to branch in the leafy canopy, not used to this tumultuous invasion of their solitudes. Then suddenly the escarpment rose like the wall of a Babel towering into Heaven. How could any way for human beings walking on two legs be found up these precipices? But despite its savagery there is scarcely one of Africa's fastnesses that has not been trodden by man, and although the practised route into the Happy Valley was from the south, and though its encompassing walls of cliff on either side and at the northern end of its lake seemed impassable, there were ways up and over them known to the Masai and Hamitic and Nilotic peoples of this sequestered rift valley.

Up some such _Via mala_ the Masai guides were now leading Brentham's caravan, with little concern for the trepidation it caused. The white man and woman and the silently suffering Goanese cook had been obliged to descend from their donkeys and trudge with the porters. The donkeys, in fact, were sent to the rear of the procession, and Brentham walked in front with the guides and a few disencumbered porters to help Lucy over an ascent which would have been thought rough climbing in the Alps, and here had to be made without any paraphernalia of ropes and irons.

Lucy sometimes had to shut her eyes and hold her body rigidly pressed against the wall of rock that she might recover from vertigo and continue with shaking legs her ascent of a twisting path, sometimes only fifteen inches broad where it overhung an abyss. Roger was beside himself with anxiety. He cast about in his mind for safeguards--Ropes? But they had none. Lengths of cotton cloth? But how get at them and apply them, when any extra movement might turn Lucy giddy and precipitate her into the tree-tops far below? Their taciturn Masai guides, pledged only to show them the way to Kilimanjaro, had given them no warning of what the path was like from the lake shore, between three and four thousand feet above sea level, to the top of the escarpment at seven thousand feet.