CHAPTER XXIX
TUBUS TO THE RESCUE
Together in the inner room of the fort, the two friends talked long and earnestly. Royce related all that had happened during Challis's absence; the discovery of Rabeh's hoard, the capture and escape of Goruba, the attack which had just been beaten off. He made light of the garrison's straits for food, and it was some time before Challis learnt that Goruba's cunning had destroyed the little that remained.
"Poor old chap!" he said. "Well, we've brought a little with us, and when we've driven the Tubus away we shall have the whole country to forage in."
"You spoke of your army," said Royce, "You're not pulling my leg?"
"Not a bit of it. I've got a couple of hundred fine fellows three or four miles away. I never thought I should live to be a drill sergeant!"
He explained how he had recruited and trained his army, and Royce chuckled as he saw in his mind's eye the first efforts of the negroes to obey the word of command.
Then they talked over their plans,
"What I propose is this," said Challis. "I'll slip out again presently, get back to my army, and lead an attack on the Tubus' camp to the north-west about dawn. When you hear the rumpus, make a sortie with your men, and fall on the enemy in the rear."
"But what about the other camps?" asked Royce.
"We must tackle them when we have joined forces," Challis replied. "I fancy the Tubus are so unaccustomed to meet organised attack that they won't put up much of a fight. At any rate, I hope they won't, for everybody's sake, though we shan't have done our work properly unless we teach them a lesson."
"Well, old man, we shall owe a lot to you. I've wondered and wondered what you were doing, wished you hadn't gone, feared I should never see you again; in short——"
"In short, you're an old ass, so shut up. You've had much the harder task in keeping your end up here. Now, don't argue, or we shall have to toss for it, and I won last time."
A little later Challis left the fort by the ladder as he had entered it, and crawled down the hill, pausing every now and again to listen for signs of the enemy. Several times he was deceived by the movement of bushes stirred by a light breeze. Once or twice rabbits or other small animals scurried away almost from beneath him, giving him a momentary start until he realised the nature of these harmless disturbances.
He reached the foot of the hill, and directed his course under cover of occasional bushes in a line between south-west and south.
A strange feeling of uneasiness held him, in spite of his efforts to shake it off. Though he moved with the utmost caution, his progress was not so silent as he could have wished. Once he stepped on a dry twig, which snapped with a report that, in his nervousness, he felt sure must be heard by the enemy.
Not until he had reached the shelter of the woodland did he breathe more freely.
There was now little chance, he thought, of his being intercepted by the Tubus, whose camp fires he had left behind him and on either hand. But there was always the risk of coming upon some wild animal, or perhaps a serpent like that which had disturbed Royce's night's rest in the tree, and in his watchfulness he strained eyes and ears painfully.
He passed safely through the thin belt of woodland, and hurried across open ground towards a thicker belt which he saw looming up before him, dark in the starlight. Just as he had come within about fifty yards of it, there was a slight sound immediately in his front. Halting, he heard the patter of bare feet on both sides, and a number of figures darted dimly into view from left and right.
And now Challis's training as three-quarter in his school fifteen stood him in good stead.
As the men approached, he sprang forward, just eluding their attack, swerved to avoid a man right ahead, and dropped, in time to bring down another rushing in from his left. He heard the negroes colliding and jostling one another in the darkness as he sprinted towards the trees.
They were after him instantly, but he had a few yards in hand when he plunged into the undergrowth, heedless of the thorns that tore his hands and clothes. The almost naked negroes were punished much more severely as they rushed in after him.
It was pitch dark in the wood. Challis ran on blindly, tearing a way by main strength, or by doubling and twisting when the obstacles were too firm to be broken through. He soon shook off his pursuers, but it was not long before he recognised that he was lost in the wood, and his nervousness returned with double force.
Should he go on, or stand still? If he went on, he might go farther and farther from his true course. If he stood still, he might be stalked by some wild beast which would probably avoid him if he were moving.
After a little anxious hesitation, he decided to climb a tree and try to get a rough bearing from the stars. When he descended, he pushed on again. He knew that the wood was not very wide. Beyond it was more or less open country, over which he thought he could easily find his way to the spot where his men were awaiting him.
Presently he came to a glade, and went more rapidly, paying less attention to his footsteps, and peering around for some opening through the rest of the wood.
Suddenly the ground seemed to give way beneath him. He fell, accompanied by a landslide of loose earth, and when at last his fall was checked, he lay for some minutes half-stunned upon the ground.
When he regained his wits, he anxiously felt his arms and legs.
"No bones broken," he thought. "But I'm sure I'm black and blue. And where am I?"
Feeling battered and bruised, he got up, shaking off the mass of earth, leaves, and twigs that had fallen with him, and began to grope about in the darkness. In a moment or two he stumbled over something hard, which rattled as he kicked it. He stooped down, and felt with his hand, which touched a heap of bones.
A shudder ran through him, and he recoiled. "Don't be a silly ass," he said to himself, and stooped again, taking up one bone after another. He could not help heaving a sigh of relief. Such large bones could never have been the framework of a human body. "I'm jiggered," he thought. "Of course, I've tumbled into an elephant pit. And how in the world am I to get out?"
He knew that elephants were sometimes trapped in deep pits by the natives, and he had vague recollections of stories of men who had fallen into such pits and never got out again.
Looking upward, he saw signs of dawn through the narrow opening. But within the pit it was still too dark for him to see the nature of the place into which he had fallen. He could only examine it by the sense of touch.
The result of his examination was alarming. He walked round the pit, testing the walls with his hand in the hope of finding a place where the earth had broken away, so that he could climb up. But he found that the walls sloped inward, like an inverted cup. They were quite unscalable.
At this discovery he was aghast. What could he do? He was twelve or fifteen feet below the ground, and though he groped around for objects with which to make a sort of pedestal, he found nothing but the elephant's bones.
"It's no good getting into a stew," he thought. "I had better wait until it is light. Perhaps I'll see a way out then."
He sat down, reflecting that, if there were no other way, he would have to dig up earth with his pocket-knife, and make a pillar high enough, if he stood on it, to enable him to reach the sides of the hole. The thought that, even if he succeeded in this, the earth above might break away in his hands, made him shiver.
In course of time the sky changed from dark blue to grey, and from grey to light blue. But the bottom of the pit was only dimly illuminated, because the hole was so small. He saw now, however, that the bones formed a complete skeleton, and that a pair of enormous tusks lay imbedded in moss, leaves, and earth.
Clearly the pit had long been disused. Those who had dug it had either forgotten it, or more probably had been killed in Tubu raids. The elephant must have met its fate many years before, for nothing but the skeleton remained.
The brushwood originally piled over the opening was only partially displaced when the elephant tumbled in, and creepers had grown over what was left, again concealing the trap.
As he became fully aware of the nature of his position, Challis grew more and more alarmed. He pictured himself sharing the fate of the elephant, starving by inches, and at last his bones lying with the skeleton on the floor of the pit.
His thoughts returned to Royce, waiting in the fort for the help that never came, and to his army, a few miles away, becoming more and more uneasy at the absence of their leader, perhaps quarrelling among themselves, breaking up and leaving the white man to his fate.
These terrible possibilities spurred him to action. Seizing one of the bones, he set to work to scrape at one side of the pit, with the idea of making a pathway.
The earth crumbled away, but was so friable that his work was like digging in sand; the space he hollowed out filled as fast as he scraped the earth away. Then he thought of driving the bones into the side to form steps, but the ground gave no hold sufficient to bear his weight.
These failures drove him to despair. Only one resource was left—to shout for help. His own men were too far away to hear him; the only persons within call were probably the Tubus from whom he had escaped. But he might as well be killed by Tubus as die of hunger and thirst in the pit. Already his mouth was parched through his exertions and his distress of mind.
He shouted again and again, until he was hoarse. There was no answer. Waiting awhile, he made his hands into a trumpet, and shouted still more loudly up through the opening. In the hollow pit the sound was tremendous. Still no one replied.
Feeling desperate, he seized his bone spade again and hacked feverishly at the floor.
"I must do something," he thought, "or I shall go mad."
With the earth he dug up he began to construct a pillar. But he soon realised that it would take many hours, perhaps days, to raise it to a sufficient height.
Hot, weary, and despairing, he was resting for a moment when he heard a low hail from above. He looked up; at one side of the hole he saw a dark face peering down. He could not distinguish the features.
Without stopping to consider whether the man were an enemy or a friend, he called to him, and he trembled with joy when he heard, in startled tones, the words:
"Massa Chally!"
"John!" he cried. "I can't get out, John."
He laughed afterwards when he remembered this very obvious statement.
"Take care," he added. "We shall both be lost if you fall in, too."
"Oh my lawks!" John ejaculated. "What for you go tumble in dat way, sah? Berry funny all same."
"Not so funny as you think," said Challis. "You must get me out. I've had enough of it."
"Oh yes, sah, me savvy. Half mo, sah."
His broad face disappeared. After some minutes he returned with an armful of creepers, which he stripped of their leaves and deftly wound into a rope. This he let down into the pit. Challis tied it under his arms, and called to John to pull. But John, strong as he was, could not haul up a man of Challis's weight without leverage, as he found in a very few moments. There was no convenient tree within easy reach. What was to be done?
"Wind it round you, and I will climb up," said Challis.
But he had risen only a few feet above the floor of the pit when John staggered, and Challis let go and dropped for fear of pulling the Hausa down. The mishap seemed to tickle John, who laughed heartily, though Challis found it no laughing matter, and was all the time uneasy lest the Tubus should appear on the scene.
"Don't stand there grinning like an ape," he said somewhat tartly.
John sobered at once.
"Me savvy, sah," he said, and for the second time he went away.
When he came back he was accompanied, to Challis's astonishment, by the two Tubus whom they had captured on the previous day. Lengthening the rope a little, he wound it tightly round the two men, who were still tied together, then called to Challis to climb.
In half a minute Challis's head was level with the brink of the pit. Then John, telling the Tubus to move away, grasped his master's hands, and by dint of the efforts of the three men Challis was hauled out of his prison.
