Chapter X: “They seem’d long hours.”

In the west, ominous clouds were banked, lurid and luminous, splashed and barred by the deep flaming crimson of the setting sun that lay, a pool of fiery red, in the midst of them. Sullen heaving waves ran right up to the land, if such it could be called; stretch upon stretch of haunting, mysterious mangrove swamp, broken only by the mouth of a river, the thick, muddy waters of which drained greasily down to the sea.

It was the scenery of the Bight of Biafra--mangroves, foul lagoons and pestilential mud. A fetid waste that was neither land nor water, all matted and grown together with rank, tangled creepers, so dense that it seemed nature’s one desire was to keep any ray of light from filtering through into the dark depths.

The scene was neither beautiful nor cheering, but it had a grim fascination as it lay there, sullen and secretive, lighted just on the edge with somber liana-slung passages leading away into darkness.

On the upper deck of the _Batava_, Lebrassa stood with his eyes on the scene. He might have been studying the wild waste of swamp, or listening to voices that were wafted across the awning-covered deck.

A fortnight had passed since Leslie had made friends with Fletcher. Since that night her acquaintances had increased, at one time numbering fully half a dozen. When the _Batava_ reached African waters they had decreased as the vessel put in at the various ports. Now, as it lay anchored off the mouth of the Calabar River, her friends on board were reduced to two, not counting Lebrassa.

One was Captain Fletcher, the other a Major Harding. The latter was a man of about forty-eight, moreover a father, as Leslie discovered before she had known him half an hour, with a daughter in England about her own age.

In spite of her new friends the girl did not altogether avoid the mulatto. He was a pariah. She had been one for a while; her own experience of the position had given her a keen sympathy for him, and a certain amount of time she still spent in his company.

Lebrassa did not appear to notice any change in her manner. He was the same as ever, except that he was anxious she should make the most of her new friends. So much so, that the fears Fletcher’s lecture had roused were speedily lulled.

A voice speaking at Lebrassa’s elbow made him turn round in his usual bored, indifferent manner.

“I can quite believe your tale about the Bight of Benin,” it said.

“Which tale, Miss Graham?” he asked.

“About the forty who didn’t come out,” she answered.

Then she glanced again at the forbidding scene.

“I wonder what goes on inside that dark landscape,” she added.

“It’s an abode of wickedness. The essence of all the evil that oozes out from the black heart of Africa.”

“It’s your country, and you oughtn’t to say horrid things about it.”

“So you consider it my country,” he remarked, smiling slightly. “In your opinion I’m more in my element here than I was, say--the night I had the pleasure of meeting you?”

Leslie was sorry she had spoken. She tried to avoid all topics that would make his black burden any heavier. But in his ways and speech he was so like a white man that sometimes she forgot the mixed blood in him.

“I didn’t mean that,” she said quickly, a look of distress on her face. “But from something you once said, I imagined you’d lived out here nearly all your life.”

“I’ve spent more than half my life out here,” he replied. “I came when I was about as old as you are now, quite twenty years ago. By now, I suppose you’re right in calling it ‘my country’,” he added, the bitterness she now knew in his voice.

With curiosity she glanced at him. He interested her deeply, this big strange man whom nobody liked, for no reason at all so far as she could see, except an accident of birth.

Often she had wanted to ask him about himself, who he really was and where he came from. And this seemed an opportunity.

“Were you born in England?” she asked, rather nervously.

Leslie knew she ought not to display so much interest in him, but somehow she could not help it. At times too, she had the queer feeling of there being a link between them, but she put this down to the fact of their both being pariahs.

“No,” he said. “I was born in Africa. In a country deep in the wilds--my mother’s country. When I was a baby, my father took me to England. At eighteen I came back to Africa. But, during the interval I’d become too civilized. I couldn’t settle down in my mother’s country--couldn’t quite break away from the white side. So I came down to Calabar, just to stay on the edge of it.”

“But didn’t you like England?”

“It wasn’t that so much as that England didn’t like me,” he said rather grimly.

He changed the conversation.

“You’ve been asking me questions, Miss Graham, so I’m going to retaliate, and ask you one.”

“What is it?”

“I often wonder what your mother was like, and why you weren’t called after her, instead of after--your father.”

“My mother died when I was a baby. But my father always said I was just like her, and not a bit like him. And I am named after her, too--Leslie Sylvia.”

“Why did you discard Sylvia in favor of the masculine Leslie?” he asked. “I much prefer Sylvia.”

On Lebrassa’s face was the quiet, well-bred smile that occasionally came now when they were together.

“I thought Leslie sounded more capable of looking after itself. Sylvia has such a frail sound, as if it ought to be kept at home in cotton-wool with some mere male to look after it. After I left school and went to live with my father, he always treated me as if I were a boy. He said I had my own way to make and I must get used to knocks. It was a bit strenuous at first, but I got used to it.”

“Poor little Sylvia! Does she always do just what this strong-minded Leslie tells her?”

“Now you’re laughing at me.”

“Indeed I’m not,” he said gravely, his mouth twitching with amusement. “In all seriousness I ask you--at a critical moment would ‘Sylvia’ or ‘Leslie’ come uppermost?”

“I won’t answer such a silly question. I’ll go and do my packing and leave you to laugh alone.”

When she left, Lebrassa’s gaze went again to the gloomy landscape, and stayed there in a fixed, brooding manner.

It was nearly midnight when the vessel anchored off Duke Town--haunting, tropical midnight, pitch-dark, close, and breathless. A thick fog hung over the river, deadening every sound, shutting out every light of the settlement on the near bank.

On the boat all was bustle and confusion, but when the noise died down a little, weird sounds came drifting in from the surrounding darkness. Voices out on the river were shouting and singing in a guttural language. In a soft, sickly manner the thick, muddy water lapped on the vessel’s side. Through the darkness came the snort and whistle of a wandering steam launch trying to locate the steamer.

In even quieter lulls, strange sounds from the distant bank were heard. The splashes and heaving sighs of uncouth monsters gamboling; hoarse bellows and soft slithering noises as of heavy bodies sliding over mud; uncanny moans and grunts and screams, mingled and mixed together in a mysterious, whispering whole by the all-enveloping fog.

Everything loomed big and haunting, wild and ghostly, distorted out of all proportion by the dense mist.

Near the gangway Leslie stood with Lebrassa, looking about her with rather nervous eyes. This uncanny land of fog and darkness was not the scented, moonlit, tropic Africa Molly’s letter had led her to expect. This fact, combined with the strangeness of everything, the eerie night and the unknown awaiting her there, made the girl a trifle hysterical.

With a triumphant snort, the wandering steam launch reached its destination. Leslie leant over the rail, straining through the murky atmosphere to get a glimpse of the occupants, hoping to see her friend. Only one person came up the gangway; an Englishman, parched and sun-dried, with the bloodless look of a grasshopper. With some surprise he glanced at her and Lebrassa, then he went along the deck to a spot some yards away where Fletcher and Major Harding were standing.

Presently, out of the shrouded gloom, came the muffled splash of oars. The sound made Leslie move nearer the gangway, thinking that, at last, Molly was coming.

A big boat loomed up, manned by half a dozen savages, naked but for a wisp of cloth round their loins. Black figures with faces like grotesque masks, skins that steamed in the faint yellow lamplight, blood-shot eyes that rolled and glistened, and mouths, big, loose and red, that jabbered in a horrible manner.

Fascinated, Leslie watched them.

For whom were they coming? To whom were they calling, with awful beast-like voices?

They were calling to--Mr. Lebrassa! And he was answering in the same way! It was Molly’s hell. Molly’s hell that she was going to!

A sweet, wild laugh just beside him took Lebrassa’s attention quickly from the boatmen.

“What’s the matter?” he asked sharply.

“Shall I… shall I get like them if I stay out here?”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know,” Leslie said in an hysterical manner. “Where’s Molly? Why doesn’t she come?”

“My men have just brought a message saying she’s not well enough to come and meet you.”

Tightly Leslie’s hands clutched the rail, all hysteria knocked out of her at the thought of Molly being ill.

“Where’s Mr. Cooper?” she asked, scanning the boatload of savages.

“He couldn’t leave her.”

“I must go to Molly at once,” Leslie said, everything forgotten but her friend.

“We’ll start now, if you wish,” Lebrassa replied. “I’ll send my men back for your luggage.”

“I must just say good-by to Captain Fletcher and Major Harding,” Leslie answered, turning in their direction.

It was very evident the group had been watching her, for her first movement in their direction brought Fletcher towards her.

“Where’s Mrs. Cooper?” he demanded.

“She’s too ill to come.”

“Then you mustn’t think of landing to-night.”

“But I must go to her,” Leslie replied.

“You can’t leave the vessel at this time of night, all alone.”

“I shan’t be alone. Mr. Lebrassa is going with me.”

“Good heavens, child, you’re not in England now, or dealing with an Englishman. If you must go, let me take you up in Atherley’s launch. I know where the place is.”

Leslie’s mouth set in the obstinate way it did on those rare occasions when Fletcher’s temper got the better of his judgment and he said anything in the least degree disparaging about Lebrassa.

“I won’t insult Mr. Lebrassa by refusing to go with him.”

Leslie left him wrathful and gloomy and went along to Harding.

“I’m going, now,” she said, “so this will be good-by.”

“Hardly ‘good-by’ as yet, Miss Graham. Dr. Atherley has kindly placed his launch at our disposal, so you’ll let us have the pleasure of seeing you to the end of your journey.”

“It’s very thoughtful of you, but Mr. Lebrassa’s boat has just come.”

Harding glanced at Fletcher. He had noted the other’s interview with the girl, and he had made a final effort to keep her in safe custody.

“Good-by,” Leslie said, holding out a hand to Harding.

With fatherly tenderness he took it.

“You mustn’t desert me altogether, Miss Graham. I miss my own little girl dreadfully, so will you promise to bring Mrs. Cooper to my bungalow sometimes and pour tea for me?”

“I don’t think Molly would care to go anywhere.”

“Well, if you can’t persuade her to come with you, come alone.”

Gratefully Leslie smiled at him.

“It’s awfully decent of you to try to make things easier for me, but I knew just what I was coming to. Molly didn’t try to deceive me. And I shall be very pleased to come and see you sometimes.”

With a pleasant smile at the Major and a cold nod to Fletcher, Leslie joined Lebrassa.

Fletcher watched the two as they disappeared down the gangway. Then he went to the rail in time to see the big boat, with its crew of savages, swallowed up in darkness.

To Leslie, as she left the _Batava’s_ side, there came a sensation of all known things gliding away--an uncanny feeling that made her shiver. She cast a quick glance back at the steamer, and stifled a desire to ask Lebrassa to stop and take her back to the world she knew. With an effort she suppressed the wish and tried to interest herself in her surroundings.

When one of the negroes struck a match, the sharp scratch made her heart give a choking jump. A moment later a lantern flared up in the bow. The combination of flickering light and curling miasma caused wild, distorted shapes to dance in the shrouded gloom, and cast weird shadows over the savage crew.

With hands clasped tightly together, Leslie watched the negroes.

Occasional grunts broke from them as they pulled and sweated at the oars to the accompaniment of a low, whining chant. To any one fresh from civilization, they were very unlike human beings. This Leslie realized as she watched them, horror-stricken at the thought of Molly being married to one of their race.

A movement at the tiller brought her mind back from the naked crew to Lebrassa.

The fitful light rendered his swarthy face darker than usual, and the negro in him showed more as he sat gazing intently ahead, picking out a difficult passage by sounds and signs that only senses attuned to the slightest noise and shadow could have noticed.

Leslie watched him. Never had she seen him look quite so dark, quite so much like a negro before.

“I’d like to give him a coat of black paint and a covering no bigger than a handkerchief, and see what I thought of him then.”

Fletcher’s words, accidentally overheard that night in the hotel, came back to her mind.

What _would_ she think of him then?

A thrill of horror went through her.

All Fletcher had said concerning Lebrassa’s sort and color returned with an appalling rush. With it came a sudden realization of the loneliness of her present position, and the terrifying knowledge that she really knew nothing at all about Lebrassa.

With fearsome speculation she watched him, noting, as she had never done before, every line and flaw on his face, the latent savagery in his eyes, the cruel set of his mouth, the whole stamped with the unmistakable seal of reckless dissipation.

What if she had been wrong all the time? What if he _were_ the Hyena?

Leslie tried to crush this thought back. But it would come uppermost. During the voyage out she had heard many terrible tales about this mysterious rebel chieftain, the mere recollection of which made her shiver.

Lebrassa must have noticed the shudder that ran through her, for he glanced sharply at her.

“What’s the matter?” he asked quickly.

Trying to stifle her terror, she looked at him.

“Have--we much further to go?”

He must have noticed the break of fear in her voice, for he smiled at her gently.

“There’s nothing _you_ need be afraid of,” he said softly. “Fifteen minutes from now you’ll be with your friend.”

His cultivated voice comforted her. It made her remember he was very different from the creatures rowing the boat.

Almost as he spoke, a faint luminous light appeared in the darkness ahead, and grew bigger and redder and more lurid as they approached it.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“The light of my wharf. The end of your river journey.”

The oars were shipped, and black, weed-grown piles loomed up. Some of the crew leant over and pawed along the slimy wood until steps were reached.

As Leslie mounted them, she experienced the uncomfortable feeling of some one’s gliding away at her approach, of unseen eyes watching her from out of the darkness. She was glad of Lebrassa’s company, and stayed close beside him while the negroes went to the trading factory to fetch a hammock in which she was to be carried up to the villa on the hill.

As they stood together, out from the night came the sudden throb of a native drum, a roll of wild music with little intermittent taps.

Another answered it, a faint echo in the distance.

The sound startled the girl. Major Harding had told her how the African tribes signalled to each other in this fashion, sending messages from place to place with amazing rapidity. She wondered what the drums were saying, and why, the moment she landed, they should roll their wild music through the night.

The sound left Lebrassa tense and listening.

In the faint light of a dying lamp overhead Leslie glanced at him. The look on his face was one she had never seen before: an expression of tigerish ferocity.

“What are they making that noise about?” she asked nervously.

“It’s in honor of your landing.”

He laughed, in a manner both savage and tender. For the message of the drums was--that he had returned, and with him was his enemy’s daughter!

His look and laugh made the girl shrink from him. The lamp overhead flared up wildly. In the sudden glare she saw a pair of eyes watching her intently. Then all light died away as the last roll of a drum came echoing down like a faint sigh from the unknown.

Leslie remained in the darkness, conscious some one was creeping stealthily up to her. She could see nothing, but she could feel an unknown and hostile presence.

A voice came out of the night, a wild jabber, loud and coarse, with a note of the beast in it, and the sound sapped Leslie’s last remaining scrap of courage.

“Are you there, Mr. Lebrassa?” she asked nervously.

At her question he laughed.

He was there. So was she. And Kallu knew it!

The depths of savagery in his tone made her shudder. All the fears that had assailed her on the river returned four-fold. Fearsomely she touched the arm of the man who loomed, solid, in the surrounding darkness.

“You’re not the Hyena, are you?” she asked in a hysterical manner.

“If I said ‘yes,’ would you believe me?”

“Please, please don’t make a joke of it when I’m here all--alone.”

The terrified, imploring note in her voice made him draw her arm through his, where he held it carefully. And Leslie was glad of the feeling of safety that came with him.

“So in a critical moment it would be Sylvia,” he said teasingly.

“Would be Sylvia!” she echoed.

Then in a shaky manner she laughed.

“What made _you_ think I might be the Hyena?” he went on. “Am I so very savage when we’re together? Or are you afraid that now I’ve got you far away from your own sort that I shall fall on you and gobble you up, as the wolf did little Red Riding Hood?”

“It was all this strange haunted night,” she confessed. “I… I think I had a sudden attack of nerves. It was stupid of me to say such a thing. You’re not angry, are you?” she finished anxiously.

“Do I sound as if I were?”

“You sound as if you were laughing at me, but then you’re very good at hiding what you really feel.”

Lebrassa made no reply. He remained silent, her arm tucked through his until the arrival of the hammock and lanterns broke the darkness again.

The party was soon stirring. Leslie lay in her litter trying to see something of her surroundings. Only indistinct trunks of trees were visible. In her ears was the sound of dripping moisture, an occasional rustle in the undergrowth, far-away, moaning howls, the stealthy pad of unshod feet, and the comforting sound of a firm, louder tread that denoted a civilized presence.

“Here’s your destination,” Lebrassa said, at length.

His words made her sit up. She saw nothing but mist and trees and a vicious thorny hedge lost either way in the darkness. There was the sound of a gate opening. More mist and trees, and, finally, a halt at the bottom of broad, wooden steps leading up to a wide, creeper-grown balcony.

The noise of their arrival brought some one along the veranda. A negro loomed up, a man of about forty, of medium height and black as any one of her bearers. Only his European dress and the look of intelligence on his face marked him out as in any way differing from them.

Before Lebrassa’s brief introduction, Leslie guessed he was Molly’s husband.

A desire to scream aloud seized her. With an effort she pulled herself together. She must shake hands with him. For Molly’s sake she must behave just as if he were a white man.

“I’m sorry I could not come to meet you, Miss Graham,” Cooper said. “But my wife is dangerously ill.”

His words stunned Leslie.

Lebrassa’s voice reached her.

“Let me take you to the dining-room. You must have something to eat after your tiring journey.”

Impatiently she turned from him.

“I must go to Molly at once. Will you take me?” she asked, looking at Cooper.

She had a vague idea of walking up the steps and along the balcony with some one who, in stilted, foreign English was imploring her to save Molly.

Then she was taken into a lighted room.

In the faint illumination of a shaded lamp she saw a trio of black faces leaning over a bed where a girl lay moaning--two men and one woman.

Leslie had eyes only for the girl on the bed. Molly was there. Molly who had done this dreadful thing for _her_ sake! Molly with her pretty golden hair and sweet, gentle face, staring wildly at the figures clustered around her.

As Leslie crossed the room, she felt a sudden hatred for everybody with a dark skin. Leaning over the bed, she tried to block out from Molly’s poor wild eyes those terrifying black faces.

“What are these people doing here?” she demanded, looking at Cooper.

“They are two doctors and a nurse, Miss Graham.”

“Send them away. I can manage quite well alone. I’ve nursed and doctored Molly through several illnesses.”

Leslie’s only idea was to clear the room of black people.

There was some demur on the part of the negro physicians. In an insolent, aggressive, patronizing manner they questioned Leslie’s right to dismiss them.

Pale and haughty, she faced them.

“You will do as I tell you. Mr. Cooper has put his wife in my care.”

She was of the dominant race and the room cleared.

When the doctors and nurse had gone, Leslie turned to Cooper.

“Will you see if Mr. Lebrassa is still here? And if he is, will you say I’d like to speak to him for a moment?”

He left immediately.

Turning from the bed, Leslie took off her hat with trembling hands. She was bending over Molly again, crooning little words of sympathy and understanding, when a light tap disturbed her.

Crossing the room, she drew aside the reed blind screening the doorway.

Outside Lebrassa stood. In his hands was a tray with coffee and sandwiches.

With an air of proud humility, as if he were more accustomed to be waited on than waiting on others, he put the tray on a table just inside the door.

“You sent for me, so I took the liberty of bringing you some supper at the same time,” he remarked as he put the tray down.

“That was thoughtful of you,” she said, looking at him with eyes full of gratitude. “I really wanted you to tell Mr. Cooper not to come in here again to-night. I didn’t like to tell him myself. But… but Molly will be much better just alone with me. I sent the doctors away too, and I’m afraid I offended them, but they were only frightening her.”

“I’ll see that Cooper and the rest of them keep out of here,” he assured her.

He half-turned to go, but Leslie’s hand on his sleeve kept him where he was.

“You’ll think me very silly,” she said quickly, in a nervous, apologetic tone, “but I wonder if you’d mind waiting here for a bit. I… I’d like to think you were here, that I’m not quite alone with--all these strange people.”

“I’ll gladly stay all night if it’s going to save you one moment’s worry.”

“I would like you to stay until it’s light again. Everything seems so fearfully dark, everybody so… so different from what I’ve been used to. It will be comforting to think I have a friend within hailing distance.”

In a peculiar manner Lebrassa laughed.

“Friend, you call me?”

All Leslie saw in his laughter and his remark was the fact that he had once told her he had no friends.

“Why not?” she asked. “You’ve always been a good friend to me.”

“And you to me, Miss Graham,” he answered with a touch of feeling in his usually indifferent voice.

He changed the conversation.

“But you mustn’t make yourself ill, looking after Mrs. Cooper. Let me send the nurse back.”

“Molly will be much better just with me, and I can manage quite all right, especially now I know you’ll be here. Good-night, and thank you so much.”

From sheer gratitude Leslie held out her hand.

Until now she had avoided shaking hands with him. In fact she had avoided all personal contact, except on the occasions when her sympathy had been aroused, or when sudden fear of the strange life she had been plunged into had made her turn to him.

Very cordially she gave her hand, for in her mind was the knowledge of the suspicions that had assailed her during the boat journey from the steamer.

Lebrassa took it carefully.

“This seals our compact,” he said, smiling at her, the quiet, well-bred smile Leslie now knew and liked. “We are no longer enemies, but friends.”

“What nonsense you do talk at times. We’ve never been enemies.”

“What about those bloodthirsty battles over the chess-board?”

Leslie laughed.

“Oh, those!” she exclaimed.

For a moment Lebrassa held her hand.

“Good-night, little friend,” he said, watching her closely.

Freeing her hand he turned away rather sharply and went from the room.

Once outside, for some minutes he stood, thoughtful and motionless, by the reed blind, as if on sentry there. Then, with a sudden, fierce movement, he went along to the dining-room, where Cooper was.

“Who sent that message up to Kallu?” he asked in a peremptory manner.

The question set Cooper fidgeting uneasily.

“I sent no message,” he answered.

“Who did then?” Lebrassa asked savagely.

“Yoni must have.”

“What made that woman interfere?”

“She had some mad notion that you’d gone to England to get married, and she sent word up to Nanza to that effect. He came down here threatening to expose everything unless he knew exactly what was happening. To keep him quiet I had to tell him it was Lionel de Tourville’s daughter you had gone to fetch.”

The reply left Lebrassa thoughtful.

“What made you connect Miss Graham with Lionel de Tourville?” he asked at length.

“From what you told me that night in Harrogate, and from what I learnt from my wife about her friend. I congratulate you on the clever way you got the girl out here.”

In a strangely unpleasant manner, Lebrassa laughed--a laugh that might have been caused by his minions running foul of his orders, or his own delight at having captured his enemy so neatly.