The Fugitives: The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar. Robert Michael Ballantyne
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and cries that were not to be accounted for by mere echoes.
This was too much for ordinary human beings. Fabled knights of old in armour of proof might have stood it, but the two white men and the black, being ordinary heroes, regardless of pride and honour, went in for a regular stampede, and it is but simple justice to say that Ebony won, for he reached the outlet of the cavern first, and sprang through it into daylight like a black thunderbolt. It is also due to his comrades to add that they were not far behind him.
Their courage, however, was soon restored. Daylight has a celebrated power of restoring courage. On clearing the bushes which concealed the entrance to the cave they simultaneously stopped, turned round, and resolutely faced their foe!
But no foe was to be seen! Once again all was still as death. After glaring for a few seconds at the spot whence the expected enemy should have issued, the three fugitives relaxed their frowning brows and turned inquiring eyes on each other.
“Dis beats cockfightin’ a’most,” said Ebony, with a sigh of intense relief.
“Ay, an’ every other sort o’ fightin’ as I ever heard on,” responded Hockins.
“Come, friends,” said their young leader, “whatever it may have been, it behoves us to get as far away from this spot as possible, and that as fast as we can.”
Chapter Two.
Harks back a little
The spot where our adventurers found themselves on issuing from the mysterious cave was a peculiarly rugged one. It formed a sort of hollow or depression in the forest-land in which we introduced the three men as fugitives. From this hollow there descended a narrow track or pathway to the extensive valley which had been seen from the summit of the precipice that barred their flight, and had so nearly proved fatal.
So confused was the nature of the ground here, and so intricate were the tracks—originally formed no doubt by wild animals, though made use of by wandering men—that it became impossible for Mark Breezy to know in what direction he was leading his comrades as he wound in and out among large rocks and fallen trees. In fact it was more by chance than guidance that they ultimately hit upon the path which finally led them to the lower region or plateau of forest-land; and it is certain that they would have found it impossible to find their way back to the cave, even had they desired to do so.
Their chief object, however, was to put as much space as possible between themselves and their late pursuers, and to this end they pushed forward at their best speed, until they reached a small river which appeared to be a tributary to, or a branch of, that which they had seen from the heights earlier in the day.
“‘Come to a ribber—couldn’t git across,
Gib a couple o’ dollars for an’ old blind hoss,’”
murmured Ebony, quoting an ancient ditty.
“We shall have to swim it, I fear,” remarked Breezy, “for there is no horse here, blind or otherwise. Perhaps that fallen tree may prove strong enough to serve as a bridge.”
He pointed to a slender tree which had evidently been placed there, with several others, for the purpose of forming a rough and ready bridge; but its companions had been removed by floods, for they lay tossed on the bank further down among other wreckage.
“It’ll be somethin’ like tight-rope dancin’,” said the sailor. “We’ll have to repair the bridge.”
“Nuffin’ ob de sort! Look here.”
Ebony ran to the tree referred to, and skipped over with admirable agility, though it bent under him not unlike a tight-rope.
“But I can’t do that,” said Hockins, “not bein’ a black monkey, d’ee see?”
With a sudden expression of intense pity the negro exclaimed—
“Oh! I beg pardin’. Didn’t I forgot; you’s on’y a white man. But stop; I come ober agin an’ took you on my back.”
He pretended to be on the point of recrossing, but the sailor had already got upon the bridge, and, with much balancing and waving of his long arms, passed over in safety. Mark was about to follow, when Hockins called out, “Better pitch over the powder-flask in case you fall in.”
“That’s true, for I mayn’t be as good as you or Ebony on the tight-rope. Look out!”
He pulled the powder-flask out of his pocket and threw it towards his comrades. Unfortunately the branch of an overhanging bush had touched his hand. The touch was slight, but it sufficed to divert the flask from its proper course, and sent it into the middle of the stream.
Ebony followed it head first like an otter, but soon reappeared, gasping and unsuccessful. Again and again he dived, but failed to find the flask, without which, of course, their gun was useless, and at last they were obliged to continue their flight without it.
This was a very serious loss, for they had not an ounce of provisions with them, and were in a land the character and resources of which were utterly unknown at least to two of them, while the youth who had become their leader knew very little more than the fact that it was the island of Madagascar, that it lay about 300 miles off the eastern shores of Africa, and that the tribes by whom they were surrounded were little if at all better than savages.
That day they wandered far into the depths of a dark and tangled forest, intentionally seeking its gloomiest recesses in order to avoid the natives, and at night went supperless to rest among the branches of an umbrageous tree, not knowing what danger from man or beast might assail them if they should venture to sleep on the ground.
Although possessed of flint and steel, as well as tinder, they did not use them for fear of attracting attention. As they had nothing to cook, the deprivation was not great. Fortunately the weather at the time was pleasantly warm, so that beyond the discomfort of not being able to stretch out at full length, the occasional poking of awkward knots and branches into their ribs, and the constant necessity of holding on lest they should fall off, their circumstances were not insufferable, and might have been worse.
While they are enjoying their repose, we will tell in a few sentences who they were and how they got there.
When Mark Breezy, in the closing years of his medical-student career, got leave to go on a voyage to China in one of his father’s ships, the Eastern Star, for the benefit of his health and the enlargement of his understanding, he had no more idea that that voyage would culminate in a bed up a tree in the forests of Madagascar than you, reader, have that you will ultimately become an inhabitant of the moon! The same remark may with equal truth be made of John Hockins when he joined the Eastern Star as an able seaman, and of James Ginger—alias Ebony—when he shipped as cook. If the captain of the Eastern Star had introduced those three,—who had never seen each other before—and told them that they would spend many months together among savages in the midst of terrestrial beauty, surrounded by mingled human depravity and goodness, self-denial and cruelty, fun and tragedy such as few men are fated to experience, they would have smiled at each other with good-natured scepticism and regarded their captain as a facetious lunatic.
Yet so it turned out, though the captain prophesied it not—and this was the way of it.
Becalmed off the coast of Madagascar, and having, through leakage in one of the tanks, run short of water, the captain ordered a boat with casks to be got ready to go ashore for water. The young doctor got leave to land and take his gun for the purpose of procuring specimens—for he was something of a naturalist—and having a ramble.
“Don’t get out of hail, Doctor,” said the captain, as the boat shoved off.
“All right, sir, I won’t.”
“An’ take a couple o’ the men into the bush with you in case of accidents.”
“Ay ay, sir,” responded Mark, waving his hand in acknowledgment.
And that was the last that Mark Breezy and the captain of the Eastern Star saw of each other for many a day.
“Who will go with me?” asked Mark,