Read Ebook: Tom Burnaby: A Story of Uganda and the Great Congo Forest by Strang Herbert

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Ebook has 1795 lines and 150573 words, and 36 pages

Tom straightened his face, and, turning, saw a pretty girl of some seventeen summers, looking very dainty and bewitching in her plain white frock. He closed the book, and held it out without a word.

"Oh, thank you!" said the girl. "Poor Father is always so careless."

And with a smile she flitted out of the room.

Later in the evening, when Tom strolled on to the veranda, Mr. Barkworth came up to him.

"H'm! come and let me introduce you to my daughter, sir. Lilian, Mr. Burnaby, nephew of my old friend Major Jack."

Lilian Barkworth gave Tom a friendly little nod and smile of recognition.

"My daughter, you know, Mr. Burnaby, wants to see the world--very restless, h'm! keeps her poor old father constantly on the trot. Two days in one place, then off we go: here to-day and gone to-morrow, h'm! But there's the admiral, I see--I know him; I must go and say how d'e do. Lilian, you may talk to Mr. Burnaby till nine o'clock. See you again, sir."

When he had gone over to speak to the admiral, Tom and Miss Barkworth looked at each other and smiled.

"Dear old Father! How deluded he is!" she said. "He firmly believes he scours the world for my benefit. I wouldn't undeceive him, but really, Mr. Burnaby, I would much rather live a quieter life. Now tell me, did he quote the guidebook?"

"Well, he did give me some historical information--"

"Ah! I thought so. I fancied you were smiling when you had the book in your hand. But he'll forget it all by to-morrow; he gets it up in five minutes and loses it in ten."

"Here to-day and gone to-morrow," suggested Tom, and the little quotation put them on good terms with each other, so that Tom was surprised to find how quickly the evening had flown when Miss Barkworth by and by held out her hand and said that her time allowance had expired.

He left Mombasa next morning before the Barkworths appeared. The journey on the single line of the Uganda railway was full of interest to him, impatient as he was to arrive at his destination. The train passed through some of the most wonderful scenery to be found anywhere on the face of the globe. Here were huge boulders, poised as though by some giant's hand, and the craters of long-extinct volcanoes; there, long stretches of open country, skirted by dense forests of acacias, banana-trees, and other tropical vegetation. Gazelles, giraffes, zebras, hartebeest sported in herds over the green plains; an occasional baboon was seen squatting on a branch; and here and there, by some lake or riverside, hippopotamuses and rhinoceroses wallowed and revelled in the shallows. Amid these signs of wild life appeared at intervals the straw huts of a native village; or a shanty, roofed with corrugated iron, marked the coming of civilization and trade: and then, towering high into the sky, rose the gigantic snow-capped form of Mount Kilimanjaro. The long journey came to an end at last, and Tom found his uncle--only to meet with sore disappointment, as already related.

He was still feeling rather downhearted as he walked towards Port Florence in the sweltering heat. It was by this time mid-afternoon, and every discreet person was indulging in siesta in the shade. Tom met no one but a few natives, dressed in little but hippo teeth and bead necklaces, and he was wondering how to find his way to the major's bungalow when his ear was caught by unmistakeable cries of pain. Turning a corner he saw a young black-follow writhing in the grip of a European in light but dirty attire, who held his victim by his woolly hair, and was belabouring his bare back with a whip of rhinoceros hide.

"Hi, you there? stop that!" cried Tom.

The man looked up sharply, gave the interrupter one scowling glance; and, seeing only a stripling, laid on again.

"D'you hear? Stop that!" shouted Tom, hurrying along till he came within arm's-length of the bully. "Drop that whip, or I'll knock you down."

"Fery goot, fery goot, my young friend," said a voice near Tom; "but you hafe soon forgot vun of my advice-vords."

"Oh, it's you, is it, Herr Schwab?" said Tom, turning and recognizing his fellow-passenger on the steamer.

"Yes, it is me," replied the German. "Vat hafe I said? I hafe said: Before all zings, step never in betveen ze native and ze vite man. Ze native are all bad lot, as you say. Now you hafe vun enemy, my young friend."

"Oh, that's all right! You couldn't expect me to look on and see that murderous brute ill-using the poor wretch?"

The German shrugged.

"Black is black, and business are business. Kindness all fery goot, courage equally all fery goot, but you should hafe--vat you call tact."

"Tact! Tuts! An ounce of common-sense to begin with," broke in another voice. "Where did you get that fool of a hat? Come along, come along."

Tom felt a firm hand on his sleeve, and, too much surprised to resist, he allowed himself to be dragged along by the new-comer, who did not stop till they reached the water's edge. There he stooped down and plucked a couple of large green leaves from a strange plant, and a moment later Tom found them flapping about his ears beneath his hat.

"There, now you'll do," said his captor. "The idea of coming out and practising boxing under an African sun in a three-and-sixpenny straw hat! Sure an' if I hadn't met you you would have been food for jackals in twelve hours. Thank your stars you were taken in hand by Dr. Corney O'Brien. And now, who are you?"

The little man with the keen gray eyes and pleasant mouth looked up at Tom and frowned.

"A Burnaby, by the powers! And I never knew the major had a family. Ah, but you're a Burnaby, plain enough, whatever they christened ye--Tom, Dick, or Harry!"

"Right first shot, Doctor," said Tom with a smile. "I'm Tom Burnaby, at your service. Will you be good enough to direct me to my uncle's bungalow?"

"Will I? Indeed I will. Come along."

Talking all the time, the little doctor led Tom in the direction of Port Florence. A few minutes' walking brought them to the major's bungalow, a one-story building of wood, raised a few inches from the ground, with a neatly-thatched roof overhanging a sort of veranda. Tom was soon stretching his legs luxuriously in one of his uncle's comfortable chairs, and scanning the walls hung with small-arms, hunting trophies, and a few choice engravings.

"Ah, this is nice!" he said. "Can I have a drink, Doctor?"

"To be sure. What'll you have? Your uncle's burgundy is good. I can recommend it."

"Really, a drink of water would do me best just now."

"Very well. Here, Saladin, cold water."

The major-domo, a tall muscular Musoga, appeared with a carafe of sparkling water.

"Lucky you're this side of the counthry," the doctor went on. "For ten years, d'ye know, I never wance touched water. 'Twas in Ould Calabar, where most of the dry land is swamp, and the rest mud, and the rule is, drink and die. But what are ye doing out here, my bhoy?"

Tom told his story, the doctor breaking in every now and then with sympathetic little ejaculations.

"'Tis hard luck; to be sure it is," he said, when Tom had told him of his uncle's blunt refusal to allow him to accompany the expedition. "But the major's right, you know, and I couldn't venture any attempt to persuade'm. We call'm Ould Blazes, you see."

"I couldn't ask you to, Doctor. I've come on a fool's errand, and have only myself to blame. I must just make the best of it. What is to be is to be."

"That's right, now. And sure here's the major himself."

"Pf! pf!" blew Major Burnaby, as he entered the room. "Glad that's over for the day at any rate. You've got the young scamp in hand, I see, Corney. Tom, untwizzle that ringer; I must tub before I do anything else."

Tom looked up to where his uncle was pointing, above his head, and saw the wire of an electric bell twisted round a bracket on the wall. He got up and pressed the button, and the major-domo appeared.

"Tub, Saladin," said the major. "And look here, this is my nephew; put him up a bed and do him well."

"All right, sah! all same for one," returned the negro cheerfully.

In a few moments the major could be heard splashing and gasping in the next room, and ere long he returned in mufti, looking cool and comfortable in a suit of white ducks and a silk cummerbund. He asked the doctor to stay to dinner, and Tom sat listening eagerly to his seniors' conversation, and admiring his uncle's thorough grasp of even the minutest details of the expedition.

It was to set out, he learned, in three or four days' time, some three hundred and fifty strong, from Port Florence, and was to cross the Nyanza in steam launches. The only Europeans besides the major and Dr. O'Brien were Captain Lister and a subaltern, the non-commissioned officers being trustworthy Soudanese. Their objective was the village of a petty chief, about a hundred and fifty miles west of the Nyanza, who had revolted against British authority, and in concert with the remnants of an old Arab slave-dealing gang had raided his more peaceful neighbours. In the course of subsequent proceedings he had treacherously killed a British officer, and a punitive expedition became inevitable. The greater part of the military forces of the Protectorate were engaged in police work on the north-eastern frontier; but they were hastily recalled, and within a month, thanks to Major Burnaby's energy, the punitive column was ready to start. The stores for the expedition were collected at rail-head, and the major had been very busy day and night in getting them up from the coast, and seeing that everything possible, to the smallest detail, was done to secure the safety and success of the column.

After the doctor had gone, the major sat for some minutes silently puffing his pipe, while Tom nervously turned over the leaves of a month-old copy of the Times. At length the major laid down his pipe, cleared his throat, and began:

"Look here, Tom, few words are best. I suppose you realize by this time that you did a very foolish thing in coming out. What's more, it was a very inconsiderate thing. Here am I, with my hands full, toiling day and night to straighten things out,--and you must come and complicate matters just as I'm driving in the last peg, and without a moment's warning; in fact, making an attempt to force my hand! It was silly, it was wrong, to say nothing of the waste of time when you ought to be working at your profession, and the waste of money which you know as well as I do you can't afford. There'd be a glimmer of excuse, perhaps, if I could make any use of you, and I'd stretch a point to do so; but it's entirely out of the question. I can't find any reason, not even a pretence of one, for bringing you in. There is really nothing for you to do. So there is no help for it, and, as you can't possibly stay here, and are bound to go back, you may as well go at once. If you really and seriously think of choosing Africa for your career, there'll be plenty of time to talk about that when you've finished your training; and we can go into it when I get home."

The major relit his pipe, and hid his sympathetic features behind a cloud of smoke. After a moment Tom said quietly:

"I'm sorry, Uncle. I didn't see it from that point of view. I was an ass. I'll go home and do my best."

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