The League of the Leopard

He followed, seeing as one walking in a dream, the sinuous line of sable limbs and white and blue draperies wind on through deepening shadow. When Amadu cried again, the moving figures fell apart on either hand, and Dane was left with their leader and the bearers beside a shallow trench, on which one shaft of sunlight fell. He cast his ragged hat down on the sand, and in a voice which seemed to belong to some other person recited such fragmentary portions of the last office as he could remember. No one moved among all the silent company, but there was an inarticulate murmur when at last the solemn words broke off.

Dane remembered nothing further beyond the dull thud of shovels; his eyesight seemed to fail him, until presently he found himself moving dejectedly back to camp behind the straggling company. He must have slept when he reached his tent, for the sun was low when Monday and Amadu stood outside the entrance, calling him. When he rose wearily, Amadu pointed to the groups of men waiting without.

"Them boy lib for savvy what you do now, sah," he said in the coast palaver.

"I can't tell them just yet," Dane answered. "What do they wish themselves?"

It was a few moments before his meaning dawned upon Amadu, for the white man felt too dazed to frame his thoughts in other than everyday English.

"Them carrier bushmen lib for beach and go back to his own country one time," said Amadu. "Say this country belong to the Ju-ju."

No man could have blamed the carriers. They had in their own fashion done their utmost, and Dane almost shared their opinion about the locality; but he pointed to other men of lighter color and soldierly aspect.

"Do these want to lib for their own country one time, too?" he asked.

Amadu laughed mirthlessly, and fingering the hilt of the straight blade glanced at Monday, whose face was very grim, and the little negro, Bad Dollar, crouching close by with a polished matchet in his hand.

"They say they follow you if you be fit to hunt them Leopard or go chop them dam Rideau."

"They shall have an answer to-morrow," said Dane. "Monday, see there is order in the camp. Tell them no man is fit to reach the coast himself, and must wait until I go with him. There is something I want to ask you, Amadu. What you did was well done, but who taught you how, when a white soldier is buried, men carry the gun. Your master has gone, and I am Cappy now."

As it were mechanically, the big dusky alien closed his heels together, while his hand went up to his ragged turban and fell again with a rigid precision.

"I had suspected it already," said Dane, half-aloud. "Sit down and tell me about it. Monday, see no boy leaves the camp."

The others disappeared, and Dane was glad when the man obeyed him. He was respectful and intelligent, and Dane felt the need of company. It seemed that the same feeling troubled Amadu.

"The white man has guessed," he said, in a strangely mixed idiom. "I carried an Emir's standard in the North, in the dry country where men fear Allah, and there is corn and tobacco. My master mocked at the Sultan, refusing his tribute, and the Sultan's horsemen came upon us while we slept. They wore fine iron chain and carried the guns which come south through the desert from where no man knows, but for an hour a handful of us held the gate with the sword. Then when other gates went down and the huts burned behind us, some one brought my master's horse, and he rode out upon them. There were less than a score of us living then, but we carried the standard almost through their midst, and when my master went down, I and three others stood over him. The Sultan had fewer men and horses when at last a gun-butt struck me down."

Amadu flung his head up as he halted, and his eyes glittered when they fastened on the listener's face.

"The Sultan was served by men, and not by such as the heathen who follow the little white man," he said.

Dane could draw the intended inference, and when he nodded Amadu appeared satisfied.

"When I lay in the grass next morning only the wall remained of the town," continued the dusky soldier of fortune. "There were sufficient heads hung about it already, so I fled south to serve the White Queen, as others of my people had done. We would follow the strongest, and knew how the great Emir of the West had mocked the white men who do not speak your tongue. So I came south and learned the drill, and wondered if the English were mad when they sent a lad with the face of a woman to lead us. There were twenty of us, all broken men who had lived by the sword, and some laughed when for the first time our officer spoke to us. Others answered him openly, and, perhaps not understanding all, he said no word to them; but when one night four men returned carrying plunder they had stolen from the heathen, and, mocking at his orders, threatened him, he shot their leader. He stood alone before us, very slight and slender, with the smoke of the pistol curling about him, and any one of those who stood by could have crushed him with their hand; but we went back to our huts when he told us, and henceforward obeyed him.

"It happened that when time had passed, and we knew our officer, as he knew us, we went up with him to chastise certain thieves, and came upon a stockade across the path, with many men who carried guns behind it. The sun hung low over the forest, and we feared treachery when one held out a palm branch; but refusing to heed us, our officer went forward alone to speak with the heathen. He stood as he used to stand, with one hand on his side, so, holding in the other only a little cane, the stockade ten paces from him, and we waiting, as he had bidden us, it may be a hundred, behind him. A wise man would not have done so, but the one who led us feared nothing. He spoke, and his voice came clear through the shadow as he stood twisting his cane a little, one lonely white man demanding submission from the heathen. Then a gun flashed, and he fell forward on his face, and with a cry for vengeance we swept the stockade. The heathen did not wait for the steel, and most of them escaped, for darkness fell suddenly upon the forest.

"We knew they would fly to the stronghold of a thief in the country of the white men who speak a different tongue, where, when certain thieves had done so, our leader might not follow; but when we had buried him we made a plan, and swore to send many of the bushmen after him. The night was far spent when we crept softly about the stockade of that heathen village, but men drunk with palm wine made merry within, doubtless boasting how they had slain our leader. It was one who had served the Sultan, climbing the stockade, drove his bayonet through the watcher at the gate, and no man saw us slip from hut to hut until we gathered softly about the headman's house, where in honor of the strangers who had killed a white man there was feasting.

"Three we could count on held the door, the rest went in, and there remained no one living when they came out again. Then we burned the village, and I went back to the outpost of the next white Captain and told him what we had done. He had eyes like the Captain Maxwell, and listened very quietly, tapping with his fingers on the table – so – but another white man whom I did not know, smote it, calling upon Allah in the speech of the English.

"Then the Captain looked hard at me, asking, 'You had no order?'

"'No. He was our master, and those bush thieves killed him treacherously,' I said boldly, and one white man nodded to the other.

"'You were wise to speak the truth in this,' said the Captain. 'Your master would never have given that order; but there are men who will not believe the rest of your tale.'

"'By salt and by fire,' I was answering, when he lifted his hand.

"'I said there are men who will doubt you, and say you shot your leader. Even if that is not so, you have killed many of our good friends' people.' When he said this the listening white man laughed a little. 'Their nation will demand restitution, and it is possible the Commissioner will hang you for what you did – which would not please me, for you are a good soldier, Amadu. Now you must wait in prison until we hear from him.'

"Again the white man smiled, and I could not read all that was in the Captain's face as he looked at me, but his friend spoke, in the speech of the English, saying that if he did something he would be condemned. So I was laid in prison, and stayed there several days, fearing greatly that I, who had carried the Emir's standard, should hang like a common bushman, until one night the comrade who brought me rations set down a treble quantity.

"'Am I to hang, a fat man, to please the white men who speak differently?' I asked him, but he answered nothing.

"It was near midnight when I heard the silver whistle, and a sound of running feet, after some one called the guard. Now I did not wish to hang, and Allah gave me understanding. The roof was of whitened iron, but the door was not strong, and they had left me my rifle, which was not usual. The door went down at the second blow, and no man saw me as I fled for the bush, taking the rifle and three days' food with me. Still, I knew it would not be well for me to remain in the country of the English, and when no man would hire me, I took service with my last master. Two I had were killed before him, but neither was his equal, and I shall not find such another in all Africa – though my service is not completed yet."

Again there was a mutual understanding between the pair, and when Dane nodded Amadu went out softly. The story had interested and also encouraged him, for he knew he would not be left without a helper in what he had still to do. Now that the numbness which followed the blow had begun to pass, there was sufficient to occupy his attention, and Dane never closed his eyes that night. The gold won would suffice to cover the cost of the two expeditions, and leave a balance which would enable him to launch his invention. Dane feared that, situated where the mine was, no company could be induced to handle it. It appeared certain that the climate, the sicknesses, and the hostility of the natives would between them prevent any private adventurers from working it successfully. Nothing could be done for some months at least, until the rains had ceased; and before morning the one white man who knew the river's secret had decided to keep it and send no more of his countrymen to their deaths in the Leopards' country. At the best, the mine lay in no-man's-land, and he had not even a black ruler's doubtful concession for reckless speculators to operate upon.

What Dane had seen and suffered had humbled his pride. Maxwell's last news still thrilled him, and he determined he would do what might better have been done earlier – ask the woman for whose sake he had pressed on into that forest to wait until he had made further progress in his legitimate profession. So far, the way was clear, but even before his comrade left him a desire for vengeance had been growing stronger within the survivor, and now a sullen fury filled the lonely man, who had pledged himself to demand a full account for any breach of trust, and had not hitherto failed his promise.

At sunrise, leaving his tent unrefreshed, he called the men together and addressed them first collectively.

"I will take you all back to the coast, and you will receive more than you bargained for when you get there," he said, rendering it, however, into the seaboard tongue. "Still, as the bushmen may try to stop us on the way, you will not start until you are rested, and I think you ready. We may not go quite the shortest way, but no boy shall suffer for it who serves me well."

There was an approving shout when the listeners grasped his meaning, but Dane called Amadu and Monday aside.

"Before or after I take these boys to the coast, I have an account to settle with Rideau. You will help me?" he said; and when he had made his purpose plainer, a dozen of his special bodyguard came forward, protesting their willingness to follow.

They set to work at once, and there was much to be done. Arms required to be stripped and oiled, loads packed for transport, and Dane drilled his men an hour or two each day. A number of days passed before all was ready, and then the combined forces looked fit for whatever they might have to do; their leader recognized that the work might be arduous.

It was early in the morning, and all waited for the word to march, when Dane stood bareheaded beside a little cross on the bluff beyond the camp. For a few moments his eyes grew misty as he glanced down at the date and name he had painfully hacked upon it. He felt that he would never meet the equal of the man who slept beneath.

"Good-by, comrade. You will be long remembered," he murmured thickly; then he solemnly recorded a vow that while Rideau went free and unpunished his own affairs would wait. Dane owed the dead man a duty, and he had taken upon himself a pledge which he meant to discharge thoroughly.

It was with as little parade of weapons as possible that the expedition headed for the coast, for the men had their orders and Amadu saw they were carried out. Those who carried matchets wore them hidden under their cotton robes, while at times the rank and file were allowed to straggle unchecked, with small semblance of discipline, in a drawn-out line. The discipline, however, was there, and disaster would have overtaken any bushmen who attempted to profit by the apparent lack of it. Dane did not order defenses of any kind to be raised at night, and generally had his tent pitched apart from the main camp; so that when they had made wide detours through dense forest and reeking swamp, some of the black men commenced to murmur as well as wonder at his recklessness. Amadu, Monday, and the negro, Bad Dollar, with whom he held long conferences, realized, however, that their leader was by no means inconsistent, even if they did not know that he was to all intents and purposes the victim of a monomania.

When it was too late forever to tell him so, he realized what his fallen comrade had been to him; and remembering how Maxwell reached the river camp, it was with difficulty that he refrained from breaking out into fits of baresark rage at the thought of their third partner's treachery. The knowledge that it was necessary to pit an intelligence unhampered by senseless fury against the enemy's cunning alone restrained him; for he felt that Rideau, who had probably heard by this time of his relief, even if he did not know it earlier, would strike again to ensure his own personal safety. He had no lack of opportunity, but, either by accident or by judgment, for long refused to fall into the trap, however temptingly Dane baited it.