Long Odds, Page 2

  CHAPTER II

  RESTITUTION

  Darkness had closed down suddenly on the forest, but it was hotterthan ever in the primitively furnished general room of Lamartine'shouse, where the lamp further raised the already almost insupportabletemperature. There was also a deep, impressive silence in the bushthat shut the rickety dwelling in, though now and then the sound of abig drop splashing upon a quivering leaf came in through the openwindow with startling distinctness. Lamartine, the French trader, wasdead, and had been buried that afternoon, as was customary, within anhour or two after the breath has left his body. His career, like thatof most men in his business, had not been a very exemplary one, but hehad, at least, now and then shown that he possessed certain somewhatfantastic and elementary notions of ethics, which he was in the habitof alluding to as his code of honor. It was, as Father Tiebout, whohad once or twice given him spiritual advice when he was very sick offever, admitted, a rather indifferent one, but very few white men inthat country had any code at all, and, as the good padre said, it waspossible that too much would not be expected from any one who hadlived in that forest long.

  In any case, Lamartine had gone to answer for the deeds that he haddone, and the three men who had buried him and had constitutedthemselves his executors sat about his little table with theperspiration dripping from them. There was Nares, gaunt andhollow-faced, weak from fever and worn with watching; Father Tiebout,the Belgian priest, little, and also haggard; and Ormsgill, thegray-eyed, brown-faced Englishman, who sat looking at them with setlips and furrowed forehead. Their creeds were widely different, butmen acquire a certain wide toleration in the land of the shadow, whereit is exceedingly difficult to believe in any thing beyond theomnipotence of evil.

  It was, perhaps, characteristic that it was the priest who tore upcertain papers Ormsgill had selected from the pile upon the table.

  "I do not think that anything would be gained by allowing them to comeunder the notice of the authorities," he said. "I am not sure thatthey might not consider they invalidated the trifling bequest to theMission, which with good management should enable us to rescue a fewmore of the heathen."

  "A very few!" and Ormsgill smiled. "The market's stiff now Domingo haspractically a monopoly as purveyor. Converts will be dearer. Oneunderstands that you buy most of yours."

  Father Tiebout's eyes twinkled good-humoredly. "One must use the meansavailable, and it is, at least, something if we can save their bodies.But to proceed, our companion will agree with me that repentance mustbe followed by restitution or reparation. In the case of the friend wehave buried one must take the will for the deed, and the will wasthere. Restitution may also be efficacious if it is vicarious. As youknow, it was the thought of the woman from the interior that mosttroubled Lamartine."

  Ormsgill glanced at Nares, for both had heard some, at least, of thedying man's words on that subject, but for a time the American lookedstraight in front of him. Then he turned to Ormsgill.

  "He seemed to expect you to make that restitution for him. Tell uswhat you know. Most of it will not be news to Father Tiebout, but Ihaven't his advantages."

  "The affair is easily understood. Lamartine bought the girl from theman who ran the labor supply business before Domingo. She wasdecidedly good-looking, a pretty warm brown in color, and had the mostintelligent eyes I've ever seen in an African. The curious thing isthat I believe Lamartine was genuinely fond of her. In any case, hewas furious when one of the boys laid what looked like very conclusiveevidence of her unfaithfulness before him. He meant to administer theusual penalty."

  Father Tiebout made a little gesture. "Ah," he said, "these thingshappen. One can only protest."

  "Well," said Ormsgill dryly, "as you know, they didn't in this case. Inearly broke his wrist, but I took the pistol from him. You see, Irather believed in the girl's innocence. Lamartine compromised thething by handing her on to Herrero--though he would take no money forher. He had, as he was rather fond of mentioning, his code of honor.There was a trying scene when Herrero sent for her. The girl flungherself down and clung to Lamartine's knees. It seemed she was fond ofthe man, and didn't want to go away, which was, as it happens, wise ofher. Though she was probably not aware of this, Herrero trains thewomen who take his fancy with the whip."

  He stopped a moment and glared at Nares. "I have no doubt the padreknows the rest. Lamartine found out not long ago that the boy hadlied, and remembered a little too late that Herrero would in allprobability beat the girl to death in one of his outbreaks. He madehim a very tempting offer if he would send her back, but Herreroapparently wanted to keep her, and while negotiations were in progressLamartine fell sick. I naturally don't know what he told the padre,but he once or twice assured me that if he knew she could be sent backsafe to her people in the bush he would die more contentedly. In fact,improbable as it may seem in this country, the thing was worrying himbadly."

  It was significant that Nares, who was something of an optimist,appeared by his expression to consider the fact that such a thingshould have troubled Lamartine very improbable indeed, but FatherTiebout smiled contemplatively. His profession gave him, as had beensuggested, advantages which Nares did not enjoy, and he was a wise manin his way.

  "Lamartine," he said, "desired to make restitution--but to do it inhis own person was not permitted him."

  Then he turned, and sat still with his eyes fixed on Ormsgill, asthough waiting. It was, in fact, an occupation he was accustomed to,for one who would see the result of his efforts must as a rule wait along while in Africa.

  Ormsgill met his gaze thoughtfully, with steady gray eyes, and it wasa moment or two before he spoke.

  "Whether a vicarious reparation will be of any benefit to the soul ofLamartine I naturally do not know," he said. "It is enough for me thathe and the padre seemed to fancy it might be, and, as it happens, Iowe Lamartine a good deal. This is why I practically promised toundertake his responsibility. I am not sure that either of you know Ifirst arrived in this Colony trimming coal among the niggers in asteamer's stokehold."

  Father Tiebout made a little gesture with his hands which seemed toimply that there was very little he was not acquainted with, andOrmsgill went on--

  "Still, I do not think you know I was quietly compelled to abandon theservice of a British Colony for a fault I never committed. My friendsat home very naturally turned against me. I had brought themdiscredit--and it did not matter greatly whether I was guilty. How Imade a living afterwards along this coast does not concern you; but Iwent down in one sense as far as a white man may, and the struggle hasleft a mark that will never quite come out on me. Still, I met withkindness from other outcasts and benighted heathen, as one usuallydoes from the outcast and the trodden on, and, when I was flung ashoreafter nearly pounding the life out of a brutal second engineer,Lamartine, who had gone down to the coast on business, held out a handto me. As I said, I feel that I owe him a little."

  He stopped for a moment with a little grim smile. "Herrero has goneSouth somewhere, taking the girl with him, but if she is alive I thinkI can promise that he will give her up. After that it would not be sovery difficult to send her back to where she comes from in the bush."

  "For the repose of the soul of Lamartine!" and Nares glanced at FatherTiebout, with a challenge in his eyes.

  The little priest's gesture seemed to imply that he declined to bedrawn into a controversy, and it was Ormsgill who answered theAmerican.

  "To discharge a debt--among other reasons--and as a protest. I havebeen driven to exhaustion myself more than once. Have you any hope atall to offer these African people, I mean in this world, padre?"

  Father Tiebout smiled. "Yes," he said simply. "One does what one can,and waits patiently. How long, I do not know, but slowly or suddenly,in our time, or in the time of these people's children, the changewill come."

  He looked at Nares, the man of action, who bore with waiting ill, andhe, flushed with fever, laid a hand that was clenched hard upon thetable.

  "
You expect them to endure to the second generation. I tell you thatthey are forging spears in the interior now. A little more, and theywill come down and wipe out every bush mission and garrison, and canwe blame them, who stand by and tolerate the abominable traffic inblack men's souls and bodies? There was more excuse for the old-timeslavery. Horrible as it would be, one could almost welcome thecatastrophe which would force the outside world to recognize whatwhite men are doing here."

  There were, perhaps, men in the outside world who knew it already, andcould suggest no remedy. After all, labor is essential to theprosperity of any African colony, and while in some which are ruled asjustly as circumstances permit the negro is offered wages for hisservices, and can go home with his earnings when he likes, there areothers where more drastic measures are adopted. There the laborpurveyor collects the white man's servants in the bush, and it is notthe business of the Administration to inquire whether they areprisoners of war or have been sold by their friends. They are bounddown to toil for a term of years, and if they die off during it fewtroublesome questions are asked. The African climate is an unhealthyone, as everybody knows.

  In the meanwhile neither of Nares' companions said anything for aspace. They were thinking of the same thing, each in his own way,while the dense steamy blackness of the African night shut them in.Ormsgill, who had been driven until the sweat of anguished effortdripped from him, wondered vaguely what a man with brains and nerveand money might do on the negroes' behalf in spite of the oppositionof a corrupt administration. The priest was also wondering how muchhe could accomplish with Lamartine's bequest, very little of whichwould, however, in all probability, be allowed to remain in hishands, though he knew that it would in any case not go very far,for he was one who recognized that the new beneficent order must beevolved slowly, here a little and there a little, with other men tocarry out what he had begun. Father Tiebout seldom rode a tilt atimpossibilities, as Nares and Ormsgill occasionally did. He was a wiseman, and knew the world too well. At last Nares made a little gestureof weariness.

  "Well, the thing may happen, but that hardly concerns us in themeanwhile, and our work here is done. I wonder if you remember thatyou haven't read the letters Father Tiebout brought up, Ormsgill?"

  Ormsgill had, as it happened, quite forgotten them. He had arrivedworn out with a long and hasty journey, and Nares and he had then keptclose watch beside his comrade's bed. When at last their watch wasover there was still much to be done, and now for the first time hehad leisure to open the packet the priest had handed him. He took outa stiff blue envelope with an English postmark, and gazed at it heavyeyed and vacantly before he broke the cover. Then he slowlystraightened himself in his chair, and incredulity gave place tobewilderment as he read the letter he shook out. Lamartine's death hadleft him an outcast and one obnoxious to constituted authority again.Five minutes ago he had not known what his next step would be, but thestiff legal writing held out before him dazzling possibilities. Thenhe laid down the letter, and turned to his companions with a curiouslittle laugh.

  "The thing is almost incredible," he said. "A man who I was told wouldnever forgive the discredit I brought upon the family has died inEngland and left me what looks very like a fortune. The other lettersmay bear upon it. You'll excuse me."

  They watched him in silence for ten minutes, and there was a faintflush in his bronzed face when he quietly rose and took out aphotograph from a little tin box.

  "Padre," he said, "you are the wisest man I know, and, thoughdistinctions are invidious, Nares is, I think, the honestest. That iswhy I am going to put a case before you. Well, I had a goodupbringing, and I think my English friends expected something from mebefore I was flung out of the British service and became a pariah.After that I never troubled them again, which was no doubt a cause ofsatisfaction to everybody. There was, however, a thing I had to dowhich was not easy, and this picture should make it clear to you. Itwas arranged that we should be married when I had brought my laurelshome from Africa."

  He handed Nares the photograph. "When I was made a scapegoat I gaveher back her liberty. It is now intimated that she has not so farprofited by it."

  Nares bent over the portrait of a young and very comely English girl,and saw only the fresh, innocent face, and the smiling eyes. Then hehanded it to the little haggard priest, who had a deeperunderstanding, and saw a good deal more than that.

  "It is a beautiful face," he said when Father Tiebout had gazed at itsteadily, but the latter said nothing, and turned towards Ormsgill, asthough still ready to give him his attention, which he seemed tounderstand.

  "It is more than four years since I saw her, and I have spent themwith the outcasts," he said. "You can realize what effect that hasupon one, padre. The stamp this country sets on the white man is plainon you, but you have not lived here as I have been forced to do. Well,I think the woman is still the same, and I have greatly changed. I donot know my duty."

  Father Tiebout sat silent for at least a minute, looking reflectivelyat the man before him. Ormsgill was young still, but his lean face wasfurrowed, and there was a suggestiveness in the lines on it. He hadseen death and pestilence, human nature stripped naked, andunmentionable cruelty; and the priest was quite aware that one cannotlive with the outcast, in Africa, and remain unchanged. Then he lookedat the photograph again, for he knew that the four years had also hadtheir effect upon the woman.

  "Ah," he said, "we all grow, some towards the beneficent light, andsome in the blighting shadow. The training and the pruning we aresubjected to also has its effect. Her people?"

  "I almost think you would consider them children of this world," saidOrmsgill dryly.

  "And you have been left a good deal of money?"

  Ormsgill told him what the amount was, and once more the priest saidnothing for awhile. Quiet and unobtrusive as he was, he never forgotthat he was one of the vanguard of the Church militant, and was readyto use with skill any weapon that was offered him. It was alsonecessary to thrust hard now and then, and he knew that in his handsthe man who had lived with the outcast and the oppressed would prove areliable blade. Ormsgill, as he recognized, had capacities. Still, hiscounsel had been asked, and he would answer honestly, knowing that hecould afford to do it if his knowledge of human nature, and the girl'sface, had not deceived him. After all, he fancied, whatever he saidthe result would be the same, and he was playing a skillful game ofwhich the stakes were black men's bodies, and, perhaps, human souls.

  "With a sum like that there is so much that one could do," he said."With discretion--you understand--here and there a little. Domingo putdown, women dying at their tasks redeemed and enfolded in the shelterof the Mission, men with brutal masters set at liberty, andconcessions where they are driven to death suppressed. One could alsobring about a reckoning with corrupt authority. When admonition is ofno service one may try the scourge."

  He saw the little glint in Ormsgill's eyes, and made a deprecatorygesture with his hands. "Still, you have asked for counsel, and youhave another duty. With us marriage is not a social contract, and thepromise that precedes it is almost as sacred. You are pledged to thisEnglishwoman if she has not released you, and that you are changedwill not matter if she loves you. It is your duty to go back to her."

  Nares looked up and nodded. "Of course!" he said. "You must go."

  Ormsgill's forehead was furrowed, and the perspiration stood in beadson it. The love that had driven him out to win his spurs in the landof shadow still in some degree, at least, remained with him; but hewas conscious of the change in him which the girl with her upbringingmight well shrink from. He had lived with the outcasts until he hadbecome one of them, a hater of conventional formulas and shams, whilethere had crept into his nature a trace of the somberness of the darkland. What, he wondered, would the sunny-tempered English girl he hadleft make of such a man. Still, as the priest had said, his duty wasclear, and, what was perhaps more, his inclination marched with it. Hestraightened himself suddenly with a little resolute jerk of hisshou
lders.

  "I will start for the coast to-morrow, and go to Grand Canary," hesaid. "As it happens, she is there now with her people. Still, beforeI go, padre, I will arrange with the casa Sarraminho to hand you theequivalent of L200 sterling. With that you can buy the liberty of thewoman Lamartine gave Herrero, and use what is left over as you andNares think fit. If Herrero will not part with her, or you find thething too difficult, I will come back for a while and undertake itmyself. After all, it is my affair. I owe it to Lamartine."

  Then he took the little photograph and replaced it in the tin box,after which he walked quietly past them and out of the room while,when they heard him go down the veranda stairway, Father Tieboutlooked at his companion with a curious smile.

  "Four years!" he said. "It is a space in a woman's lifetime, and everyyear leaves its mark on us. It is decreed that we must grow, but we donot all grow the same."

  In the meanwhile Ormsgill stood in the little compound with the sourwhite steam drifting past him. The forest rose out of it, a greatblack wall, and its hot, damp smell was in his nostrils. It was aheady savor, for something that goes with the smell of the wildernesssinks deep into the hearts of those who once allow it to enter, and isalways afterwards a cause of disquietude and restlessness to some ofthem. Ormsgill had had his endurance and all the courage he was bornwith taxed to the uttermost in that steamy shade, but now when he wasabout to leave it he found the smell of its tall white lilies and theacrid odors of corruption stirring and shaking him. At last, with alittle jerk of his shoulders, which was a trick he had acquired fromLamartine, he turned and went back to the lighted room again.