THE WOMAN IN IT.

Otago Witness, Issue 3804, 8 February 1927, Page 81

THE WOMAN IN IT.

By

L. G. Moberly.

•; (Copyright.—For the Witness.) "So few °f m y stories have, a woman jus their centre. Well, perhaps your ' is true.” Donald Fraser stretched out his long 'jSJgjfegs towards the blazing fire of logs. “The fact is that my wanderings have Visually led me into outlandish places, where you will seldom come across a woman —at any rate, a white one. But % you will remember there was very much a in my story about ‘The Place of '^©evils’ —and I don’t think that if she ■had been as white as driven snow anybody could have been more heroic and self-sacrificing than the girl whose colour was golden., brown, whose religion was the religion of savages. I shall never forget her and her supreme act of sacrifice. As a matter of fact, it is rather odd you should have started this particular subject to-night, for a letter I had by the last post has awakened old echoes . of something that happened long ago; and when I opened that letter, I tell yon, old man, the very smell, of the West ; hinterland seemed to jump out at < me, and I know -no force so potent as 'Smell to recall old scenes and old memories. Yet the letter was in its way JBommonplaee enough—a wedding invitation, and I have no business to call it . a commonpl ace communication, for I am the last man to consider marriage a commonplace affair.” “Even though you have remained a bachelor?” I put in softly. “‘Even though I have remained a bachelor.’ ” He echoed my words. Under the note of jesting there lay a touch of seriousness; and old and great friends as we were, I somehow felt that I jeould not pursue the subject. “And a story hinges upon the wedding invitation-'that came by the last post,” I said. “If the smell of West Africa still haunts you, tell me the story before it leaves you again. Your stories have a fascination entirely their own.” Fraser laughed that ringing, spontaneous laugh of his, like no one else’s laughter.

"I wonder you’re not tired of my yarns, old man,” he said. “I have the hungry interest- of the enforced stay-at-home for the travel tales of the fortunate traveller,” I retorted. “Is it going to be West Africa to-night?” “West Africa —yes —if I follow on the . tracks of that haunting smell which the brought me,” he answered with a “I almost feel as if. I were back ‘again in that pestiferous swamp beside the river, instead of in your comfortable library beside a real English fire. We had iiot much need of any fire in that Godforsaken spot,” he added grimly. “The heat was like the concentrated essence of the infernal regions, the kind of heat that ■wrings all the strength and sap out of you, • and leaves you like a rag or a wrung-out sjionge. No —it was not only a flow ci I .was after on that occasion. though I had not neglected my botanical reBearches, there was another object in this particular journey. A' troublesome tribe had been giving more trouble than usual, and annoying its neighbours intolerably, and- a email expedition had gone up the ’river to quieten the mischief-makers. I went-with the expedition, and the story am going, to tell you happened when we 'Mbad- finished our work and were going slowly back to the coast. Slow-going was a necessity in that sweltering climate, and on the way, when we reached the particularly pestilential swamp Ij mentioned just now, we were all well tuck- . erbd out. I don’t know that I can remember ffny place which affected one in Buch a strange way, both physically and mentally. The stench of rotting- vegetation from the swamp, the green wall of jungle which shut it in on every side—a wall that had. the appearance of being solid and impenetrable; the hot mist that curled above the dark pools showing between the snaky mangrove roots; all these had the effect of lowering the spirits; and our bodily strength was already considerably lowered by our long and difficult march through a dense jungle 'lpountry. Somewhere on the slightly higher ground above the swamp we knew there .was a native village, at least, so our guide assured ns; and he also assured us With emphasis that close to the village

.we should find a white man, a missionary, as as we could gather!. That piece of .information was the otily thing that /raised our decidedly drooping spirits, for . more than once we had known what it was to receive hospitality at a mission station, and very good hospitality it always was. “ ‘We must somehow make our way to the village to-night,’ our comnianding officer said in a tired sort of voice, after wo hpd stood for a few minutes in silence beside- that pestiferous swamp. “‘lt is quite obvious we can’t, camp here,’ the Major continued, and again I ' noticed the- tired flatness of his voice. , '.The whole lot of us would be down with fever in an hour. Phew !—what a poison/ous smell!’ And he turned rather fiercely upon our guide, who had- been nicknamed -Adam by the youngest of our officers—jack Hanley. ‘Why did you bring us to. this place?’ the Major demanded— Take us to the village.’ A look which I could not quite interpret swept over Adam’s black countenance- There was

fear in his eyes, and a furtive questioning. “ ‘Going to village now ?’ he stammered in his own lingo. ‘Not very nice village—not very much food.’ “I thought you told me there was a white man in the village,’ Deane, the Major, said sharply, speaking the man’s own language as ne had done throughout. ‘Take us straight to his house first.’ “ ‘White man gone away—big palaver,’ ’ Adam answered. “‘What a confounded plague!’ Deane exclaimed drearily in English, turning to me. ‘All the same, we must get away from this pestilential spot, and make the best we can of whatever village there is. Lead us to the mission house whether the white man is there or not,’ he added, turning again to Adam, whose face plainly expressed disapproval at the suggestion. “ ‘Very strong Ju-ju that village,’ he said, sinking- his voice to a whisper. ‘Juju feast coming soon.’ ? ‘^ len ’t will have to come,’ Deane said irascibly. ‘I am not going to keep any human being down by this swamp for. any Ju-ju tomfoolery in creation.’ This last remark he made to me in English. ‘We shall not disturb the Ju-ju celebrations.’ He turned again to Adam. ‘How do you know about them, anyway ? J Somebody told me,’ and further than this he would not say. — I could tell you sheaves of stories about the extraordinary power possessed by natives of sending and receiving news in a way quite incomprehensible to the white man’s intelligence. Is it done by telepathy ? What is it ? In savage countries news travels faster than by any methods known to us, and in ways -unknown to us. ’ Adam had been with the column day by day as we marched through the jungle. He had never stayed away, nor, as far as we knew, had any strangers approached him, and yet, here he was giving us information x about a village which we had not yet reached. “ ‘We must go there anyhow,’ Deane said to me and to Hanley, who stood near. ‘lf it is true that the missionary is away, it’s a bore. However,’ he shrugged his shoulders, -needs must when the devil drives, and this swamp is an impossible camping place. Sorry to have to make any of you go a step further, but it can’t be helped.’ “But we saw the force of his remarks, and the least enlightened of us knew quite well that to stay where we were meant sickness, if not death. So, feeling even then more dead than alive, we started on again, and once more plunged through the wall of jungle which seemed to swallow us up and flow over us in a great wave of rank greenness.

have no idea how long we tramped wearily on, hewing our way as we went through the tangle of creepers and undergrowth, but eventually we reached a clearing on which Were scattered some native huts, and beyond them, on rather higher ground, stood a building on slightly more pretentious lines. “ ‘That be Mission House,’ Adam informed the Major, and we made our straggling way towards it, watched by the natives with a curiosity which struck me as somewhat sullen and unfriendly. “Not a very friendly-looking lot, I remarked to Deane.

“ ‘Very much the reverse,’ he responded. ‘Probably they resent our turning up when they are holding some taniasha for their pet Ju-ju.’ “By this time we had reached the Mission House, a low building of the bungalow type. The house was locked up and empty, and to our inquiries amongst the natives we only got one aifswer: ‘White man gone away, big palaver very long way off, for very long time.’ There was nothing for it but to set up our own camp, which we proceeded to do on the vacant space behind the Mission House, a spot we chose because it was the highest ground avail--able, and here we made ourselves as comfortable as was possible under not very promising circumstances. The sullen villagers did bring us a few vegetables and eggs, and some remarkably skinny fowls, but they brought them with evident reluctance, and the headman did his level best to discourage us from staying in the place. “ ‘Sorry to have to disoblige that rather persistent person,’ Deane said dryly, after a prolonged talk with the potentate in question, ‘but we must stay here to-night, and possibly longer. A rest for the men is absolutely imperative.’ “Young Hanley was -perhaps the only one of the party genuinely pleased to stay. He had a mania for studying tribal habits, and was in his element now. Deane and I, -seated at our tent door, watched him with a smile as he meandered off down the village. . “ ‘What wonderful piece of knowledge will he acquire this time?’ Deane speculated, as he lit a Cigarette. ‘I am ready to swear he’ll find out something no one else has discovered.’ “How little either of us guessed what a terrible truth lay behind those carelesslyspoken words. “I suppose we had been sitting there, smoking and chatting, for about an hour, and the sun was already dropping behind the wall of jungle when Hanley suddenly appeared from the far side of the tent. His face was the colour of ashes; in his eyes there was a look of frozen horror which I shall never forget, and for a moment or two he stood silently beside uS as though something had deprived him of speech. ■ ~ “ 'What on earth is the matter?’ Deane exclaimed, his voice and face expressing the concern he felt, for Jack Hanley was a favotirite with all of us, officers and men alike. ‘What’s wrong?’ Deane repeated when Hanley did not at once reply. “ ‘Those fiends,’ the boy stammered-—he was very little more than a boy—‘they’ve

got. a white woman for their Ju-ju feast —a white woman,’ he repeated, ‘to be sacrificed.’ “ ‘What?’ Deane was out of his chair in the twinkling of a second, and I was out of . mine. ‘Oh. you’ve misunderstood something, Hanley; it’s? impossible! Where should they get a white woman?’ “ ‘They’ve got her all right,’ Hanley spoke as if he were half choked. 'I haven’t made any mistake. I understand their talk well enough. -There’s no time to lose.’ And young Hanley’s face set in stern lines of determination. . - “ ‘Tell us more,’ Deane said shortly. “I heard two chaps talking, they didn’t know I was close to the hut. They were using no very measured language about our arrival. They are afraid we may discover that their Ju-ju celebration includes the sacrifice of a white woman. And they know well enough we shouldn’t allow that if/We discovered it.* “‘A white woman!—a white woman!’ Deane said with a bewildered air. But where in the name of all that’s evil have they found a white woman here in the heart of an African forest?’ “ ‘I don’t know—and that’s neither here nor there,’ Hanley answered shortly, in his excitement, forgetting any politeness due to his superior officer. We must find the place where this precious Ju-ju hangs out, and save the poor woman if it’s not too late.’ - “ ‘Of course, we must,’ Deane said, soothingly. ‘Better get hold of Adam.’ “By the expression of Adam’s face when he did appear, it was perfectly sure that the old ruffian had some knowledge of what was going on. He was allowed no chance of communicating with the villagers, whilst Deane launched the most blood-curdling threats at him if he refused to guide us to the domain of the Ju-ju. Adam shook with fear at the bare proposition and his eyes nearly started out of his head.

“ ‘Very strong Ju-ju,’ he faltered. ‘Very dreadful things happen if anybody goes near Ju-ju house.’ “ 'Very dreadful things are going to happen to you if you don’t take us to the Ju-ju house,’ was Deane’s grim response, and Adam cowered before him like a whipped hound. Ho obviously felt himself to be between the devil and the deep sea—the devil as represented by the Major; the deep sea, the villagers. He preferred to throw in his lot with us rather than face the ‘very dreadful things’ threatened by Deane. “There was no possibility of our taking any steps before night. The villagers already watched us with furtive, sullen glances, and any attempt to discover that most sacred spot, the Ju-ju house, by daylight would have been doomed to failure, not to mention that we should all most certainly have been killed. Consequently, although Hanley was fuming to do something without delay, Deane persistently refused to stir until darkness had set in.

“ ‘My good fellow,’ said Deane, ‘you don’t want to alarm the whole village, and advertise our intentions. If you mean to give that unlucky white woman, whoever she may be, a dog’s chance, for heaven's sake look unperturbed now. Be as casual and ordinary as you can—laugh, talk, Whistle, anything to make those infernal beggars suppose everything is all serene.' “I am bound to say Hanley rose to the occasion, and played his part like a man, and long before the murmur of voices in the village had ceased we had retired into the tent, ostensibly for the night. But we kept Adam with us, and he still wore the appearance of a very muchtroubled and distraught worm. At an hour in what still seemed the dead or night, we stole out by the back of the tent into the blackness. “A thick mist was wrapped about the village and hung over the jungle, and the darkness was almost tangible. The clammy mist made one hot and cold at once, and there was an eerie sense of something evil about the black darkness. Ever since our arrival at the village l—and indeed I think all of us—bad had a feeling of evil and foreboding, and that feeling deepened as we stumbled along through the blackness and the clammy mists. Excepting for an occasional whispered direction, we went along in total silence, and I can tell you it was far more like a vastly unpleasant nightmare than a real flesh-and-blood march through an every-day jungle. “Presently, after what seemed an interminable time, a sort of greyness showed the mists. They began to curl up and drift away like long wisps of smoke at the coming of dawn, and as they drifted and trailed about us whilst the firsf.' rays °f ie SUH struck the thick green of the jungle, we felt as if we were in a vapour bath. The mists were still curling about us, but the darkness was replaced by a dim green light, when Deane called a halt, and Adam pointed a shaking hand towards what looked like the densest and most impenetrable bit of jungle. , / “ ‘Ju-ju house in" there,’ he said, and almost before the words were out of his lips Hauley, who throughout had been like a terrier pulling at his leash, sprang forward, and began to force his way through the tangle of vegetation. ♦ “Hanley’s sudden dash at the wall of jungle gave us a breathless feeling of desperate haste. By the time we were through the green wall we were panting, exhausted, and dripping with perspiration; and Hanley several paces ahead of us, beckoning us on towards a rudelyconstructed hut in the middle of a little clearing. Outside the door of the hut was strewn a gruesome collection of bones and skulls of animals, and we saw on the door of the hut itself' hung many strange objects, presumably offerings of the faithful to the Ju-ju But the door —such as it was—was shut. “ ‘Very strong Ju-ju, very dreadful to go in there.’ Adam-cried to Hanley, Who I was heading straight for the door. .‘Some

away—oh, come away—terrible Ju-ju,’ liealmost shrieked when Hanley paid no heed to his first words. His eyes were nearly starting from his head; his teeth chattered ; he looked from one to the other of us with glances of terrified appeal, and his words fell over one another as he almost gibbercdiki his anxiety to prevent us from going into the hut. “ ‘Stop that fool’s chatter!’ Hanley exclaimed, forgetting that lie was only a junior, forgetting everything before some imperative call which was urging him on. ‘Stop him, and listen.’ “Deane clapped a hand over Adam’s mouth. A sound reached us, coming from within the hut, the sound of a low cry in a woman’s voice. It was pitiful—pitiful enough to wring one’s heart. “Hanley was the first to push open the apology for a door, and to burst into the place, though -we followed close upon his heels. In the darkness which seemed all the darker after the green light of the outside world, wte could at first distinguish nothing, but as our eyes grew accustomed to the dimness, and as some light filtered through the doorway, wc saw' what that hut contained. “It was a foul and filthy spot—forgive the language—but no other words express what it was, and the reek of the heavy atmosphere was indescribable. Near the furthest wall, on a rude kind of erection, stood a small, roughly-carved figure, hideous and shapeless. “ ‘Good God!’ The cry broke from Hanley, ■who, still ahead of us, was stooping over something in the darkest corner of that dark place. I reached the corner next, and over Hanley's shoulder I saw a girl's face, wearing a look of such frozen horror as I shall never forget to my dying day. She was bound to the wall of the hut, and her face, was as white as the coarse gown which hung from her neck to her feet. Even the fact that relief had come could not drive away the horror from her eyes; she was incapable of realising that we were rescuers. - She shrank and shivered when Hanley put out his hand to cut the fibre thongs which bound her, and though her white lips moved, no sound came from them.

“ ‘I say, it's all right,’ Hanley gasped out, whilst his hands were busy releasing her. ‘We are English. We are going to get you away from these devils.’ “Some soothing quality in his voice seemed to release the tension which held her, and gradually—very gradually—the sense of what he had said penetrate:! to her brain. The awful horror died slowly out of her eyes, bewilderment took its place. “ ‘Englishmen?’ she said, in English as pure as Hanley’s own. ‘Englishmen?’ And then, I tell you, old it was one of the most pitiful sights I ever saw—tears dropped down her white cheeks, slow, painful tears that looked as if they hurt her as they dropped, one by one. “Five minutes after our entering the hut she was free, standing in our midst, looking from one to the other of us with pathetic bewilderment, the tears still dropping down her face, dropping, I believe, from sheer thankfulness. “Adam stood at the door of the hut. shaking like an aspen leaf, his mouth wide open, his eyes nearly starting out of his head.

“ ‘Are you English, too?” Hanley asked again, when the girl did not answer at once, and she only bent her head affirmatively as though speech were still a difficulty. Her 'eyes, so blue they were, such real English eyes, looked straight into Hanley’s honest face; I think she found comfort in meeting his steady glance; and something that bore a very distant resemblance to a smile flickered over her lips. Her hair was unbound, and fell round her in a torrent of gold, and she put up her hand to fling it back over her shoulders as if its weight oppressed her. Then all at once the horror came back into her eyes. “ ‘You must not stay here.’ she sard, finding her voice, because-she realized our danger. ‘You must go quickly, quickly! The sacrifice is for to-day, and if they find you here, if they find you ' Her voice died into silence. “ ‘The sacrifice?’ Hanley spoke these two words. ‘“lt was a white woman the Ju-ju wanted,’ she said in a low, fearless whisper. ‘There was sickness in the tribe, and the medicine man could not save the sick. He said there must be a sacrifice, and I—l ’ “ ‘But why are you here at all?’ Deane put in. ‘lt seems incredible to find a white woman here.’ “ ‘My father is the missionary,’ she said. ‘We lived in the village, he and I and my mother. Then my mother died, and he and I were alone.’ "‘But, good heavens!—how 'could he let you ’Hanlev . began indignantly, when she stopped him. “ ‘He was called away. There was one of his people—his converts —very ill- in a village through the jungle, and he had to go. My father’—her voice rang with pride—‘my father never leaves his duty undone.’ “ ‘But he left you alone to these devils!’ Deane put in drily- ‘And. if it had not been for a mere chance -’ “ ‘They would have sacrificed me to-day.’ Although she shuddered, her voice was strangely quiet. It was evident that she was her father’s daughter. Character and strength looked out of her blue eyes and were written upon her beautiful face. "She did not allow us to linger in the Ju-ju hut discussing sacrifices in the abstract or concrete. She impressed upon us most earnestly and convincingly that when the blood of the tribe was up they would stop at nothing, and having defrauded the' Ju-ju. of his' lawful prey we should carry our lives in our hands uidil we were beyond the tribal boundaries. .“‘I can guide you.to where my father has gone,’ she said. ‘Only conic—come away quickly. There is no time to lose—-

not a single second, for when the sun goes down they will come here for the sacrifice.’ “ ‘And the victim will have vanished 1’ Hanley exclaimed, . trying to introduce something cheery into the depressing situation. “I need not tire you out with a description ef our tramp through the jungle during the sweltering hours of that day. Many times the alarm was raised that we were being pursued, but either the alarms were false or the pursuers did not like the look of us at close quartern. We reached safely the village to which tne worthy padre had gone, and we found him, as I had expected, a visionary and a fanatic, lacking just the grain of commonsense which would have made him take his daughter with him or leav e her adequately protected. As it turned out, no sick man had needed his services at all. He had simply been decoyed away in order that the necessary white sacrifice might be offered to the Ju-ju. “Well, Henry Frobisher was a saint, with a saint’s defects, and his daughter, Leonora, inherited his finer qualities, and added to them a savour of everyday sense. And her beauty was beyond question. We were all her slaves, but Hanley was easily first in the running.” Fraser paused a second, and I wondered whether the beautiful white girl who had so nearly been sacrificed accounted for the fact that he had remained a bachelor. “Hanley,” Fraser resumed, “worshipped the very ground she walked upon, and I believe she had learnt to care for him from the very first moment her blue eyes looked into his steady grey ones. There was never any doubt what the end of it all would be. And her father came down with us to the little coast and married her to Hanley in a little white church within sound of the surf, and shadowed by the rustling leaves of giant palm trees. Theirs has been a wonderful married life,” he went on, abruptly, after another pause. “And this evening’s postbag has brought me an invitation to the wedding of my god-child—their eldest daughter. That is why the old story has come back to me—a story this time with a woman in it.”