Chapter XXIV--In the Bush

by Jack London

　　It was quite a formidable expedition that departed from Berande atbreak of day next morning in a fleet of canoes and dinghies. Therewere Joan and Sheldon, with Binu Charley and Lalaperu, the eightTahitians, and the ten Poonga-Poonga men, each proud in thepossession of a bright and shining modern rifle. In addition,there were two of the plantation boat's-crews of six men each.These, however, were to go no farther than Carli, where watertransportation ceased and where they were to wait with the boats.Boucher remained behind in charge of Berande.

　　By eleven in the morning the expedition arrived at Binu, a clusterof twenty houses on the river bank. And from here thirty odd Binumen accompanied them, armed with spears and arrows, chattering andgrimacing with delight at the warlike array. The long quietstretches of river gave way to swifter water, and progress wasslower and more dogged. The Balesuna grew shallow as well, andoftener were the loaded boats bumped along and half-lifted over thebottom. In places timber-falls blocked the passage of the narrowstream, and the boats and canoes were portaged around. Nightbrought them to Carli, and they had the satisfaction of knowingthat they had accomplished in one day what had required two daysfor Tudor's expedition.

　　Here at Carli, next morning, half-way through the grass-lands, theboat's-crews were left, and with them the horde of Binu men, theboldest of which held on for a bare mile and then ran scamperingback. Binu Charley, however, was at the fore, and led the wayonward into the rolling foot-hills, following the trail made byTudor and his men weeks before. That night they camped well intothe hills and deep in the tropic jungle. The third day found themon the run-ways of the bushmen--narrow paths that compelled singlefile and that turned and twisted with endless convolutions throughthe dense undergrowth. For the most part it was a silent forest,lush and dank, where only occasionally a wood-pigeon cooed or snow-white cockatoos laughed harshly in laborious flight.

　　Here, in the mid-morning, the first casualty occurred. BinuCharley had dropped behind for a time, and Koogoo, the Poonga-Poonga man who had boasted that he would eat the bushmen, was inthe lead. Joan and Sheldon heard the twanging thrum and saw Koogoothrow out his arms, at the same time dropping his rifle, stumbleforward, and sink down on his hands and knees. Between his nakedshoulders, low down and to the left, appeared the bone-barbed headof an arrow. He had been shot through and through. Cocked riflesswept the bush with nervous apprehension. But there was no rustle,no movement; nothing but the humid oppressive silence.

　　"Bushmen he no stop," Binu Charley called out, the sound of hisvoice startling more than one of them. "Allee same damn funnybusiness. That fella Koogoo no look 'm eye belong him. He nosavvee little bit."

　　Koogoo's arms had crumpled under him, and he lay quivering where hehad fallen. Even as Binu Charley came to the front the strickenblack's breath passed from him, and with a final convulsive stir helay still.

　　"Right through the heart," Sheldon said, straightening up from thestooping examination. "It must have been a trap of some sort."

　　He noticed Joan's white, tense face, and the wide eyes with whichshe stared at the wreck of what had been a man the minute before.

　　"I recruited that boy myself," she said in a whisper. "He camedown out of the bush at Poonga-Poonga and right on board the Marthaand offered himself. And I was proud. He was my very firstrecruit--"

　　"My word! Look 'm that fella," Binu Charley interrupted, brushingaside the leafy wall of the run-way and exposing a bow so massivethat no one bushman could have bent it.

　　The Binu man traced out the mechanics of the trap, and exposed thehidden fibre in the tangled undergrowth that at contact withKoogoo's foot had released the taut bow.

　　They were deep in the primeval forest. A dim twilight prevailed,for no random shaft of sunlight broke through the thick roof ofleaves and creepers overhead. The Tahitians were plainly awed bythe silence and gloom and mystery of the place and happening, butthey showed themselves doggedly unafraid, and were for pushing on.The Poonga-Poonga men, on the contrary, were not awed. They werebushmen themselves, and they were used to this silent warfare,though the devices were different from those employed by them intheir own bush. Most awed of all were Joan and Sheldon, but, beingwhites, they were not supposed to be subject to such commonplaceemotions, and their task was to carry the situation off withcareless bravado as befitted "big fella marsters" of the dominantbreed.

　　Binu Charley took the lead as they pushed on, and trap after trapyielded its secret lurking-place to his keen scrutiny. The way wasbeset with a thousand annoyances, chiefest among which were thorns,cunningly concealed, that penetrated the bare feet of the invaders.Once, during the afternoon, Binu Charley barely missed beingimpaled in a staked pit that undermined the trail. There weretimes when all stood still and waited for half an hour or morewhile Binu Charley prospected suspicious parts of the trail.Sometimes he was compelled to leave the trail and creep and climbthrough the jungle so as to approach the man-traps from behind; andon one occasion, in spite of his precaution, a spring-bow wasdischarged, the flying arrow barely clipping the shoulder of one ofthe waiting Poonga-Poonga boys.

　　Where a slight run-way entered the main one, Sheldon paused andasked Binu Charley if he knew where it led.

　　"Plenty bush fella garden he stop along there short way littlebit," was the answer. "All right you like 'm go look 'm along."

　　"'Walk 'm easy," he cautioned, a few minutes later. "Close up,that fella garden. S'pose some bush fella he stop, we catch 'm."

　　Creeping ahead and peering into the clearing for a moment, BinuCharley beckoned Sheldon to come on cautiously. Joan crouchedbeside him, and together they peeped out. The cleared space wasfully half an acre in extent and carefully fenced against the wildpigs. Paw-paw and banana-trees were just ripening their fruit,while beneath grew sweet potatoes and yams. On one edge of theclearing was a small grass house, open-sided, a mere rain-shelter.In front of it, crouched on his hams before a fire, was a gaunt andbearded bushman. The fire seemed to smoke excessively, and in thethick of the smoke a round dark object hung suspended. The bushmanseemed absorbed in contemplation of this object.

　　Warning them not to shoot unless the man was successfully escaping,Sheldon beckoned the Poonga-Poonga men forward. Joan smiledappreciatively to Sheldon. It was head-hunters against head-hunters. The blacks trod noiselessly to their stations, which werearranged so that they could spring simultaneously into the open.Their faces were keen and serious, their eyes eloquent with theecstasy of living that was upon them--for this was living, thisgame of life and death, and to them it was the only game a manshould play, withal they played it in low and cowardly ways,killing from behind in the dim forest gloom and rarely coming outinto the open.

　　Sheldon whispered the word, and the ten runners leaped forward--forBinu Charley ran with them. The bushman's keen ears warned him,and he sprang to his feet, bow and arrow in hand, the arrow fixedin the notch and the bow bending as he sprang. The man he letdrive at dodged the arrow, and before he could shoot another hisenemies were upon him. He was rolled over and over and dragged tohis feet, disarmed and helpless.

　　"Why, he's an ancient Babylonian!" Joan cried, regarding him."He's an Assyrian, a Phoenician! Look at that straight nose, thatnarrow face, those high cheek-bones--and that slanting, ovalforehead, and the beard, and the eyes, too."

　　"And the snaky locks," Sheldon laughed.

　　The bushman was in mortal fear, led by all his training to expectnothing less than death; yet he did not cower away from them.Instead, he returned their looks with lean self-sufficiency, andfinally centred his gaze upon Joan, the first white woman he hadever seen.

　　"My word, bush fella kai-kai along that fella boy," Binu Charleyremarked.

　　So stolid was his manner of utterance that Joan turned carelesslyto see what had attracted his attention, and found herself face toface with Gogoomy. At least, it was the head of Gogoomy--the darkobject they had seen hanging in the smoke. It was fresh--thesmoke-curing had just begun--and, save for the closed eyes, all thesullen handsomeness and animal virility of the boy, as Joan hadknown it, was still to be seen in the monstrous thing that twistedand dangled in the eddying smoke.

　　Nor was Joan's horror lessened by the conduct of the Poonga-Poongaboys. On the instant they recognized the head, and on the instantrose their wild hearty laughter as they explained to one another inshrill falsetto voices. Gogoomy's end was a joke. He had beenfoiled in his attempt to escape. He had played the game and lost.And what greater joke could there be than that the bushmen shouldhave eaten him? It was the funniest incident that had come undertheir notice in many a day. And to them there was certainlynothing unusual nor bizarre in the event. Gogoomy had completedthe life-cycle of the bushman. He had taken heads, and now his ownhead had been taken. He had eaten men, and now he had been eatenby men.

　　The Poonga-Poonga men's laughter died down, and they regarded thespectacle with glittering eyes and gluttonous expressions. TheTahitians, on the other hand, were shocked, and Adamu Adam wasshaking his head slowly and grunting forth his disgust. Joan wasangry. Her face was white, but in each cheek was a vivid spray ofred. Disgust had been displaced by wrath, and her mood was clearlyvengeful.

　　Sheldon laughed.

　　"It's nothing to be angry over," he said. "You mustn't forget thathe hacked off Kwaque's head, and that he ate one of his owncomrades that ran away with him. Besides, he was born to it. Hehas but been eaten out of the same trough from which he himself haseaten."

　　Joan looked at him with lips that trembled on the verge of speech.

　　"And don't forget," Sheldon added, "that he is the son of a chief,and that as sure as fate his Port Adams tribesmen will take a whiteman's head in payment."

　　"It is all so ghastly ridiculous," Joan finally said.

　　"And--er--romantic," he suggested slyly.

　　She did not answer, and turned away; but Sheldon knew that theshaft had gone home.

　　"That fella boy he sick, belly belong him walk about," Binu Charleysaid, pointing to the Poonga-Poonga man whose shoulder had beenscratched by the arrow an hour before.

　　The boy was sitting down and groaning, his arms clasping his bentknees, his head drooped forward and rolling painfully back andforth. For fear of poison, Sheldon had immediately scarified thewound and injected permanganate of potash; but in spite of theprecaution the shoulder was swelling rapidly.

　　"We'll take him on to where Tudor is lying," Joan said. "Thewalking will help to keep up his circulation and scatter thepoison. Adamu Adam, you take hold that boy. Maybe he will want tosleep. Shake him up. If he sleep he die."

　　The advance was more rapid now, for Binu Charley placed the captivebushman in front of him and made him clear the run-way of traps.Once, at a sharp turn where a man's shoulder would unavoidablybrush against a screen of leaves, the bushman displayed greatcaution as he spread the leaves aside and exposed the head of asharp-pointed spear, so set that the casual passer-by would receiveat the least a nasty scratch.

　　"My word," said Binu Charley, "that fella spear allee same devil-devil."

　　He took the spear and was examining it when suddenly he made as ifto stick it into the bushman. It was a bit of simulatedplayfulness, but the bushman sprang back in evident fright.Poisoned the weapon was beyond any doubt, and thereafter BinuCharley carried it threateningly at the prisoner's back.

　　The sun, sinking behind a lofty western peak, brought on an earlybut lingering twilight, and the expedition plodded on through theevil forest--the place of mystery and fear, of death swift andsilent and horrible, of brutish appetite and degraded instinct, ofhuman life that still wallowed in the primeval slime, of savagerydegenerate and abysmal. No slightest breezes blew in the gloomysilence, and the air was stale and humid and suffocating. Thesweat poured unceasingly from their bodies, and in their nostrilswas the heavy smell of rotting vegetation and of black earth thatwas a-crawl with fecund life.

　　They turned aside from the run-way at a place indicated by BinuCharley, and, sometimes crawling on hands and knees through thedamp black muck, at other times creeping and climbing through thetangled undergrowth a dozen feet from the ground, they came to animmense banyan tree, half an acre in extent, that made in theinnermost heart of the jungle a denser jungle of its own. From outof its black depths came the voice of a man singing in a cracked,eerie voice.

　　"My word, that big fella marster he no die!"

　　The singing stopped, and the voice, faint and weak, called out ahello. Joan answered, and then the voice explained.

　　"I'm not wandering. I was just singing to keep my spirits up.Have you got anything to eat?"

　　A few minutes saw the rescued man lying among blankets, while fireswere building, water was being carried, Joan's tent was going up,and Lalaperu was overhauling the packs and opening tins ofprovisions. Tudor, having pulled through the fever and started tomend, was still frightfully weak and very much starved. So badlyswollen was he from mosquito-bites that his face wasunrecognizable, and the acceptance of his identity was largely amatter of faith. Joan had her own ointments along, and sheprefaced their application by fomenting his swollen features withhot cloths. Sheldon, with an eye to the camp and the preparationsfor the night, looked on and felt the pangs of jealousy at everycontact of her hands with Tudor's face and body. Somehow, engagedin their healing ministrations, they no longer seemed to him boy'shands, the hands of Joan who had gazed at Gogoomy's head with palecheeks sprayed with angry flame. The hands were now a woman'shands, and Sheldon grinned to himself as his fancy suggested thatsome night he must lie outside the mosquito-netting in order tohave Joan apply soothing fomentations in the morning.