Read Ebook: Homo 1909 by Smith Francis Hopkinson

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Ebook has 97 lines and 7349 words, and 2 pages

Mme. Constantin and the others had gathered closer to where Bayard sat. Even the wife of the young secretary had moved her chair so she could look into the speaker's face. All were absorbed in the story. Bayard went on:--

"One of the queer things about the African fever is the way it affects the brain. The delirium passes when the temperature goes down, but certain hallucinations last sometimes for weeks. How much of the queer story was true, therefore, and how much was due to his convalescence--he was by no means himself again--I could not decide. That a man should lose his soul and freedom over a woman was not new, but that he should bury himself in the jungle to keep from killing a man whose pardon he wanted to ask for betraying his wife was new.

"I sympathized with him, of course, telling him he was too young to let the world go by; that when the husband got cool he would give up the chase--had given it up long ago, no doubt, now that he realized how good for nothing the woman was--said all the things, of course, one naturally says to a man you suspect to be slightly out of his head.

"The next night Judson returned. He brought newspapers and letters, and word from the outside world; among other things that he had met a man at the landing below who was on his way to the camp above us. He had offered to bring him with him, but he had engaged some Zanzibari of his own and intended to make a shorter route to the north of our camp and then join one of the bands in charge of an Arab trader-some of Tippu-Tib's men really. He knew of the imminence of the rainy season and wanted, to return to Zanzibar before it set in in earnest. Judson's news--all his happenings, for that matter--interested the young Belgian even more than they did me, and before the week was out the two were constantly together--a godsend in his present state of mind--saved him in fact from a relapse, I thought--Judson's odd way of looking at things, as well as his hard, common sense, being just what the high-strung young fellow needed most.

"Some weeks after this--perhaps two, I can't remember exactly--a party of my men whom I sent out for plantains and corn returned to camp bringing me a scrap of paper which a white man had given them. They had found him half dead a day's journey away. On it was scrawled in French a request for food and help. I started at once, taking the things I knew would be wanted. The young Belgian offered to go with me--he was always ready to help--but Judson had gone to a neighboring village and there was no one to leave in charge but him. I had now not only begun to like him but to trust him.

"I have seen a good many starving men in my time, but this lost stranger when I found him was the most miserable object I ever beheld. He lay propped up against a tree, with his feet over a pool of water, near where my men had left him. His eyes were sunk in his head, his lips parched and cracked, his voice almost gone. A few hours more and he would have been beyond help. He had fainted, so they told me, after writing the scrawl, and only the efforts of my men and the morsel of food they could spare him brought him back to life. When I had poured a few drops of brandy down his throat and had made him a broth and warmed him up his strength began to come back. It is astonishing what a few ounces of food will do for a starving man.

"He told me he had been deserted by his carriers, who had robbed him of all he had--food, ammunition, everything--and since then he had wandered aimlessly about, living on bitter berries and fungi. He had, it appears, been sent to Zanzibar by his government to straighten out some matters connected with one of the missions, and, wishing to see something of the country, he had pushed on, relying on his former experiences--he had been on similar excursions in Brazil--to pull him through.

"Then followed the story of the last few weeks--the terrors of the long nights, as he listened to the cries of prowling animals; his hunger and increasing weakness--the counting of the days and hours he could live; the indescribable fright that overpowered him when he realized he must die, alone, and away from his people. Raising himself on his elbow--he was still too weak to stand on his feet--he motioned to me to come nearer, and, as I bent my head he said in a hoarse whisper, as if he were in the presence of some mighty spirit who would overhear:--

"'In these awful weeks I have faced the primeval. God stripped me naked--naked as Adam, and like him, left me alone. In my hunger I cried out; in my weakness I prayed. No answer--nothing but silence--horrible, overpowering silence. Then in my despair I began to curse--to strike the trees with my clenched fists, only to sink down exhausted. I could not--I would not die! Soon all my life passed in review. All the mean things I had done to others; all the mean things they had done to me. Then love, honor, hatred, revenge, official promotion, money, the good opinion of my fellows--all the things we value and that make our standards--took form, one after another, and as quickly vanished in the gloom of the jungle. Of what use were they--any of them? If I was to live I must again become the Homo--the Primeval Man--eat as he ate, sleep as he slept, be simple, brave, forgiving, obedient, as he had been. All I had brought with me of civilization--my civilization--the one we men make and call life--were as nothing, if it could not bring me a cup of water, a handful of corn or a coal of fire to warm my shivering body.'

"I am not giving you his exact words, Louise, not all of them, but I am giving you as near as I can the effect untamed, mighty, irresistible nature produced on his mind. Lying there, his shrivelled white face supported on one shrunken hand, his body emaciated so that the bones of his knees and elbows protruded from his ragged clothes, he seemed like some prophet of old, lifting his voice in the wilderness, proclaiming a new faith and a new life.

"Nor can I give you any idea of the way the words came, nor of the glassy brilliance of his eyes, set in a face dry as a skull, the yellow teeth chattering between tightly stretched lips. Oh! it was horrible--horrible!

"The second day he was strong enough to stand, but not to walk. The rain, due now every hour, comes without warning, making the swamps impassable, and there was no time to lose. I left two men to care for him, and hurried back to camp to get some sort of a stretcher on which to bring him out.

"That night, sitting under our lamp--we were alone at the time, my men being again away--I gave the young Belgian the details of my trip, telling him the man's name and object in coming into the wilderness, describing his sufferings and relating snaps of his talk. He listened with a curious expression on his face, his eyes growing strangely bright, his fingers twitching like those of a nervous person unused to tales of suffering and privation.

"'And he will live?' he said, with a smile, as I finished.

"'Certainly; all he wanted was something in his stomach; he's got that. He'll be here to-morrow.'

"For some time he did not speak; then he rose from his seat, looked at me steadily for a moment, grasped my hand, and with a certain tenderness in his voice, said:

"'Thank you.'

"'For what?' I asked in surprise.

"'For being kind. I'll go to the spring and get a drink, and then I'll go to sleep. Good night!'

"I watched him disappear into the dark, wondering at his mood. Hardly had I regained my seat when a pistol shot rang out. He had blown the top of his head off.

"That night I buried him in the soft ooze near the spring, covering him so the hyenas could not reach his body.

"The next morning my men arrived, carrying the stranger. He had been plucky and had insisted on walking a little, and the party arrived earlier than I expected. When he had thanked me for what I had done, he began an inspection of my rude dwelling and the smaller lean-to, even peering into the huts connected with my bungalow--new in his experience.

"'And you are all alone except for your black men?' he asked in an eager tone.

"'No, I have Mr. Judson with me. He is away this week--and a young Belgian officer--and--I--'

"'Yes, I remember Mr. Judson,' he interrupted. 'I met him at the landing below. I should have taken his advice and joined him. And the young officer--has he been long with you?'

"'About two months.'

"'He is the same man who left some of his luggage at the landing below, is he not?'

"'Yes, I think so,' I answered.

"'A young man with light curly hair and upturned mustache, very strong, quick in his movements, shows his teeth when he speaks--very white teeth--'

"'He was smiling--a strange smile from one whose lips were still parched.

"'Yes,' I replied.

"'Can I see him?'

"'No, he is dead!'

"Had I not stretched out my hand to steady him he would have fallen.

"'Dead!' he cried, a look of horror in his eyes. 'No! You don't mean--not starved to death! No, no, you don't mean that!' He was trembling all over.

"'No, he blew out his brains last night. His grave is outside. Come, I will show it to you.'

"I had almost to carry him. For an instant he leaned against a tree growing near the poor fellow's head, his eyes fixed on the rude mound. Then he slowly sank to his knees and burst into tears, sobbing:

"'Oh! If I could have stopped him! He was so young to die.'

"Two days later he set out on his return to the coast."

With the ending of the story, Bayard turned to Mme. Constantin:

"There, Louise, you have the rest of it. You understand now what I meant when I said there was something stronger than revenge;--the primeval."

Greenough, who had sat absorbed, drinking in every word, laid his hand on Bayard's shoulder.

"You haven't told us their names."

"Do you want them?"

"Yes, but write them on this card."

Bayard slipped his gold pencil from its chain and traced two names. "My God, Bayard! That's the same man I told you is dying of a broken heart."

"Yes--that's why I told you the story, Greenough. But his heart is not breaking for the woman he loved and lost, but for the man he hunted--the man I buried."

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